17 years' jail for killing toddler

A man convicted of the murder of 14-month-old Palmerston North toddler Mereana Clements-Matete has been sentenced to a minimum 17 years in prison.

Demis Peter Paul, 25, was found guilty last month of killing the young girl with a single blow to the stomach on December 22 last year.

Sentencing judge Justice Warwick Gendall yesterday told the court he would have preferred to impose a minimum 15-year sentence, but was bound by legislation that mandated a 17-year minimum, provided the term was not shown to be manifestly unjust.

Paul did not react to the sentence.

A jury took five hours to find him guilty of murdering the toddler while on home detention serving the end of a 27-month term for offences including burglary, theft and drug offending.

Paul had been given home detention at the house of his partner Kim Matete, Mereana's mother, starting in September last year.

On December 22, Paul was babysitting Mereana, her brother Jade, now 7, and cousin Caleb, then 2.

About 6.30pm Jade and Caleb were seen playing outside the house. Five minutes later Paul arrived at a neighbour's house carrying Mereana and asking for someone to call an ambulance.

Paul originally blamed the child's death on 2-year-old Caleb, before admitting to police that he struck the infant, saying it was to keep her quiet but denying he intended to kill her.

Paul is the son of Jan Yorke, a prostitute who used the trade name Velvet.

Yorke is serving a minimum of 13 years for the 1995 killing of her lover's wife and the attempted murder of another woman in Taranaki.

- NZPA