The grandmother has been on trial over assault charges against her grandchildren for two weeks. Photo / 123rf
The grandmother has been on trial over assault charges against her grandchildren for two weeks. Photo / 123rf
WARNING: This article discusses child abuse and may be upsetting to readers.
A jury struggled for two days to come to an outcome for a woman facing 19 allegations of abuse against her grandchildren, including hitting them with a hockey stick, and eventually found her not guilty on the majority of the charges.
However, she did not get away completely free, with the jury finding her guilty of two charges of assault that occurred on multiple occasions with a spoon.
The woman - who cannot be named to protect the identities of the children - has been on trial in the Whangārei District Court for the last two weeks on charges of assault on a child, assault with intent to injure, assault with a blunt instrument and threatening to do grievous bodily harm.
In a rare occurrence, none of the three children were called to give evidence and the jury had to rely on the evidential interviews filmed by police almost three years ago to make their decision.
It was not disclosed why the children were unavailable to be cross-examined and Judge Taryn Bayley directed the jury to rely on the recorded interviews as the evidence.
Defence lawyer Jarred Scott pointed the rarity out in his closing statement to the jury.
“It is not routine for children to not be here. The fact they are not here should add weight to your decision,” Scott told the jury.
Scott said the children’s stories were extreme, unreliable and the Crown had not proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt.
The jury deliberated for two days to reach a decision on 19 charges. Photo / Northern Advocate
On day two of deliberations, the jury asked for a definition of “beyond reasonable doubt” to which Judge Bayley reiterated her summing-up.
“If you are unsure if the defendant is guilty, you must find her not guilty. If you are sure she is guilty, you must find her guilty,” Judge Bayley directed the jury.
The three grandchildren came into the woman’s care when police dropped them at her house after their living arrangements broke down and they had nowhere to go.
Until then, they had never had a relationship with their grandmother.
The woman said in her evidential interview when she told Oranga Tamariki she could not have them, they said she could not give them back and that she had only “slapped” them for stealing.
One child said the abuse started within a month of moving into the already over-crowded home and they were regularly hit with either a wooden spoon, a metal “boil-up” spoon, or a hockey stick that was kept in the corner of the room.
Her daughters and partner gave evidence the abuse did not happen but Crown lawyer Ally Tupuola told the jury in closings their stories did not match up.
“Their evidence cannot silence the voices, the evidence of the three children, the cover-ups, the excuses, the lies, cannot silence the truth of what happened,” Tupuola said.
Tupuola was critical of the woman’s blame of Oranga Tamariki for leaving the children in her care and said it did not warrant abuse.
“Kids left in her care unexpectedly does not give you a right to abuse them. It is not a defence to blame the process, to blame the shortcomings of the system we live in,” she said.
“Just because a process implemented was not in line with the way she thought is not an excuse. They came into her care and that’s the end of it.
In her closing remarks to the jury, Tupuola said: “Believe the children.”
The jury found the woman guilty of two charges, not guilty on 14 and could not reach a decision on three.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te TaiTōkerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.
