Adoptive mother who denied wounding child received similar convictions just weeks ago

The woman was on trial this week in the Hutt Valley District Court.

An adoptive mother who strenuously denied multiple violent assaults on her two daughters was convicted just weeks ago of similar offending on a third person, it can be revealed.

The 59-year-old, who has name suppression to protect the identities of her young victims, was found guilty yesterday of abusing the girls - including wounding one of them and hitting the other with the buckle of a dog collar.

Throughout her judge-alone trial in the Hutt Valley District Court this week she claimed she had never done more than slap the girls and pull their hair, calling them “liars”.

But moments after Judge Chris Sygrove found her guilty of the offending yesterday, he was handed a document from the police prosecutor revealing the woman had been convicted just a few weeks ago on two charges of assault with a weapon. Judge Sygrove was unable to be informed of the prior convictions until he had given his verdict, to protect the integrity of the trial process.

The trial began on Monday, with the woman pleading guilty at the outset to two representative charges of assault, which covered the slapping and hair pulling. But she maintained her not guilty pleas for charges of assault with a weapon, wounding, and impeding breathing.

In their interviews with police and during cross-examination in court, the girls described incidents of being hit with chairs and dog collars, being dragged by their hair and bitten, and one alarming case where the victim, aged about 8, said she was swung by her hair into the corner of the dressing table, causing an open wound on her head.

The girls both described being beaten at home, sometimes with objects. Photo / 123RF

The defendant claimed she had been pulling the girl and, when she let go, the child fell. She said she wasn’t aware she had hit her head or that she had a wound, despite the fact the girl had blood crusted over her hair at school the next day.

The defendant also denied hitting her other daughter with a chair and a dog collar, and denied an incident where she was accused of biting one of the girls on the hand and putting her in a chokehold.

“Both of them are liars . . . I’ve never done anything to those girls to hurt them, never,” she said when she was giving evidence.

In giving his reserved decision yesterday, Judge Sygrove found the woman not guilty on a charge of impeding the girl’s breathing or circulation, saying he could not be sure there was any intention to do that, rather than try to restrain the girl.

But he found the woman guilty on all the other charges.

“The only person in this case who thinks they’re lying is you,” he told the woman.

He expressed displeasure with “attempts to sully the children’s name and reputations by referring to them stealing and telling lies”.

He said the girls’ behaviour did not surprise him, “given the home environment they were subjected to”.

In cases where the girls’ evidence contradicted the defendant’s, he “almost without exception preferred the evidence of the children,” adding the children were “refreshingly forthright” in their evidence.

The woman will be sentenced next month.

Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.