KEY POINTS:
A South Auckland baby who died this week after suffering a skull fracture had experienced previous abuse and was so malnourished she had not put on any weight since her birth 11 weeks ago.
Tahani Mahomed died in the Starship hospital on Tuesday morning, four days after she was taken to Middlemore Hospital by her parents on the advice of a parenting helpline.
The couple have told supporters they called the helpline on December 28 after the baby girl failed to wake during the night for her usual feeds and was still not hungry in the morning.
They told police Tahani was in a good condition when she was taken to hospital. However, the findings of a post-mortem examination yesterday prompted police to launch a homicide inquiry.
Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Lynch said the autopsy revealed a number of injuries, including a fatal fracture to the back of Tahani's head - which had caused bruising to the brain and occurred at the thickest part of the skull.
There was also evidence of severe haemorrhages to both her eyes and at least one other older injury which was consistent with child abuse.
Mr Lynch said the injuries were not the result of an accident. The little girl was also so severely malnourished she remained at her birth weight of 3.8kg.
Mr Lynch said the baby girl had been in the care of her Otahuhu parents since she was born in Middlemore Hospital.
Police are still trying to reconstruct what happened but believe her injuries were inflicted in the 24 hours before she was taken to hospital and the inquiry is now focusing on establishing who was in contact with her during that time.
Tahani's parents, who are co-operating with police, are of Indian descent. They travelled to New Zealand on South African passports about a year ago with another daughter who is now 2 years old. That child has now been taken out of their care and placed into the custody of Child Youth and Family.
Mr Lynch said there was no indication that the family had been in contact with any government agencies, such as Child Youth and Family, before this week.
Tahani's mother, who is in New Zealand on a student visa, told the Weekend Herald last night that she did not want to talk about what happened for fear of not getting her other daughter back.
When asked if she knew what happened to Tahani she said: "No, I'm sorry I won't be able to tell you anything at the moment. I don't want to make any issue because if you do [a story] then my daughter won't be able to come back."
South Auckland Muslim Association president Haji Khan said Tahani's parents were grieving at the loss of their baby. He said the couple did not have any other family in New Zealand.
Mr Khan accompanied them to the morgue to collect Tahani's body on Thursday. "She was such a beautiful girl, it really hurt me inside. I went inside and brought her out of the mortuary."
Mr Khan said he had tried to stress the importance of the couple telling the police the truth."That's when I went a little hard and said, 'You might have done something and that's the reason the cops and welfare take the child away.' They never admitted it at any time. They were just crying and saying how can they do anything to the child."
