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The mother of the slain Kahui twins admitted failing to wake, feed or change the boys for hours after arriving back at their Mangere home from a night out about 9am.
Macsyna King spent four hours on June 13 last year arguing with her partner, talking to her brother and having breakfast at McDonald's before seeking medical help for the badly injured infants.
The twins died in the Starship hospital on June 18, five days after being admitted with serious injuries, including bleeding in the brain, and broken bones.
Their father, Chris Sonny Kahui, 22, is accused of murdering the babies while Ms King was away from the house. He denies the charges, which are the subject of a depositions hearing in the Manukau District Court.
Ms King, 30, Kahui's former partner and now a crucial prosecution witness, yesterday told the court of finding a fresh "circle-shaped bruise" on baby Chris' cheek after coming home from a night at her sister's place. She had left Kahui to mind the boys.
She arrived back to find the place "ugly, untidy [and] just a mess", and saw Kahui was not there. She asked her brother Stuart King - who also lived at the house - where Kahui was.
He told her he did not know where he had gone, but said "something" had happened to one of the twins overnight.
"He told me that while I had been gone on Monday night, Cru had stopped breathing, that he had gone blue in the lips, and it pretty much freaked them all out."
Kahui returned a short time later, and in attempting to explain his absence, and the boy's bruise, blamed the bruise on the couple's 1-year-old son, Shane.
"He told me that he had fed the boys ... He lay them down on the couch after he had fed them and closed the door to the nursery and went to the kitchen," said Ms King.
"He told me that while he was doing that, Shane had crawled up the hallway, pushed open the door to the nursery, and tried to grab Chris' face."
It was not until the twins were taken to the family doctor about 1pm - via McDonald's, where the group stopped for breakfast - that the seriousness of their condition dawned on Ms King, the court heard.
She said the GP's face "changed" as he began examining the infants.
"I watched him open their eyelids and flash a light. He told me that we needed to get them to hospital."
But Kahui would not drive the boys straight to Middlemore Hospital and refused point blank to go himself, she said.
"I immediately asked why not ... He just kept saying he didn't want to come with me."
After returning to the family home at Mangere, Kahui disappeared as Ms King was inside collecting possessions for the boys' hospital stay.
She eventually had to take them to Middlemore on her own.
The extent of their injuries became apparent when baby Chris woke up as Ms King was waiting for help at the hospital's accident and emergency department. "His pupils were hugely dilated and I freaked out."
Middlemore nurses were immediately worried, Ms King said. "One of them took a look at Chris' eyes, and I remember three, maybe four other nurses rushed to her aid."
The boys were taken straight into the operating theatre. "I remember bits and pieces of nurses telling me the boys were fitting, that it was a very extreme emergency and that they needed to act straight away."
Ms King said she managed to speak to Kahui by telephone later that day and he maintained that the boys had been attacked by brother Shane. Kahui finally arrived to see the boys - after they were transferred to the Starship - about 10pm on June 13.
But under cross-examination by his lawyer Lorraine Smith, Ms King conceded she had not been fully aware of the extent of the boys' injuries after visiting the GP.
Mrs Smith submitted that it was therefore hardly surprising that Kahui had been reluctant to go to the hospital.
Ms King agreed Kahui had never before prevented her from seeking medical treatment for the boys.
Ms King is a mother of six, though none of her children are in her custody, the court heard. When questioned about her own attendance at the twins' bedside in their final days, she could not remember.
- with NEWSTALK ZB
