Court told of violent injuries that killed child

The injuries that killed 14-month-old Mereana Clements-Matete were so violent they could only have been inflicted in a serious assault or a high-speed car crash, a depositions hearing in Palmerston North District Court has been told.

Mereana was taken to Palmerston North Hospital on the night of December 22 with injuries that included a transection (tearing in two) of the small bowel and "shredding" of the mesentery artery, one of the major arteries branching from the aorta.

She died that night. Her mother's boyfriend, Demis Peter Paul, 24, is accused of murdering the infant. He is denying the charge.

Paul says he found the child's two-year-old cousin jumping on the child, at one point landing bottom-first on her abdomen.

But paediatric surgeon Kevin Pringle yesterday told the court the injuries were too serious to have been inflicted by a two-year-old, who possessed neither the power nor the weight to cause them.

He said he had only ever seen such injuries sustained in a "domestic setting" in instances of child abuse.

The bowel injury was likely caused by the organ being jammed between the object causing the blow and Mereana's spine. It was torn "completely apart", he said.

Though the bowel injury was not likely to have had an immediate effect on Mereana, the results of an arterial tear would have been instant.

The mesentery artery carries 5 to 10 per cent of the body's blood and the tear would have caused "massive blood loss", Dr Pringle said.

About 40 per cent of Mereana's blood volume was found in her abdominal cavity during the post-mortem examination.

Dr Pringle said the chances that a two-year-old inflicted the injuries in any of a number of ways suggested during the hearing would have been "vanishingly small".

Pathologist Cynric Temple-Camp who conducted the post-mortem examination of Mereana told the court that veins near the bowel had been "destroyed" over a 30mm by 40mm area.

A blow of "considerable force" had effectively "guillotined" the infant's bowel against her spinal column.

Dr Temple-Camp said he had seen similar blunt-force trauma injuries in victims of motor vehicle accidents and plane crashes and once in a child-homicide case, but none of those injuries was as serious as those inflicted on Mereana.

The hearing, in front of Justices of the Peace George Hills and Robert Campbell is expected to finish today.

- NZPA