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A violent man who killed his 3-month-old daughter was out on bail at the time and shouldn’t have been around her.
Things learned that the man, who has his name permanently deleted, was arrested following a family injury incident some two months before the boy’s death at a Porirua home in November 2018.
The then 22-year-old was charged with threatening behavior and released on bail, the conditions of which prevented him from associating with his partner and two children.
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* Man pleads guilty to manslaughter of three-month-old baby in Porirua
He was still subject to those conditions when he took over the baby and killed her.
An autopsy revealed multiple historical fractures to the girl’s ribs, clavicle, shoulder, finger, and trauma to the elbow.
Medical experts concluded that the boy had been assaulted on at least two previous occasions.
In Wellington Superior Court on Thursday, the man, now 24, was jailed for four years and five months.
He had previously admitted the involuntary manslaughter charge along with several of assaulting his partner and one of accidentally striking the baby’s older brother.
Judge Francis Cooke removed the man’s name to protect the identity of his partner and surviving son.
Kevin Stent / Dominion Post
Police investigated the death of a 3-month-old baby in Porirua in November 2018. (File photo)
The court heard that on November 12, 2018, the 3-month-old was crying more than usual and her parents took her to the hospital.
A doctor suspected he had reflux.
The next day, the girl was left in the care of her father sleeping in a house in Porirua while her mother went to rest.
But an hour later he heard the baby cry and came out again. He found the father holding the baby and seemed to be angry.
When she asked him if everything was okay, he sent her back inside. As she was leaving, she heard the baby cry as if it hurt. She ran back to sleep but, scared to face her father, she went back inside when he told her to.
It was then that he hit, shook or threw the baby with such force that she began to bleed in her eyes.
Expert reports submitted to the court said that he would have stopped breathing immediately after the injury and would have remained in a coma until his death.
He then left her alone in the dream to visit an associate while her mother slept at home.
Upon his return, he told the mother that he had fed the baby and that he was asleep.
Hours later, he brought the baby home and said something was wrong. An ambulance was called but she was already dead.
Between February 2017 and June 2018, she hit, pushed and slapped her partner and tried to hit her in the face, but failed and hit her eldest son on the head.
While she was pregnant, they had an argument in which she hit him and he hit her on the arm. He apologized but got angry again with both sides pushing and shoving each other.
Oranga Tamariki Wellington Regional Manager Cassie Revel said the agency received a report of concern about the family on September 20, 2018, because they had not committed to “community services.”
After several failed attempts, social workers visited the home on October 5 and the family agreed to “reconnect with those community services.”
No additional work was deemed necessary.
The killer grew up in an abusive home.
His Samoan father, known to the police, was extremely violent and abused alcohol.
From the age of 11, the defendant had been using cannabis and when he was 18 he was using methamphetamine and drinking heavily.
She met the boy’s mother on a night out in Wellington in late 2015 or early 2016. She had been raised by an extended family in New Zealand. His parents lived in Samoa.
About a year after meeting, the couple became parents.
The relationship was plagued by the man’s controlling and abusive behavior, but he had no violent convictions on his record when he killed the boy.
His attorney, Elizabeth Hall, said in court that his record had set him on a path that had now, horribly, come to fruition.
She said that he had taken responsibility for what had happened and that he would have to walk with the guilt and shame of it all his life.
The boy’s mother was not in court for the man’s sentencing. It is understood that she remains in contact with him.
