KEY POINTS:
In her short life Jyniah Te Awa was held against a gas heater, swung around by her hair, hung on the back of a wardrobe door and left in a closed freezer.
The attacks horrified her unsuspecting family and police investigating the crime.
Yet none of these events
claimed the 10-month-old girl's life. In the end, Jyniah was killed in a prolonged and terrifying attack that spanned a weekend while she was in the care of a trusted family friend.
Tiana Kapea, then 28, was a member of the whanau. She had several young children of her own and had looked after Jyniah and other relatives on many occasions.
One weekend last September, Kapea was caring for Jyniah while her mother, Lisa Cassidy, took a rare opportunity to go out with friends.
The abuse started on the Friday night. Frustrated by Jyniah's crying, Kapea - who was trying to sleep - kicked the baby two times, each blow achieving the desired goal of silencing her.
During the next day and a half the abuse escalated. When Jyniah began crying again, Kapea hit her over the head. When that tactic did not work, she used her hand to cover the baby's nose and mouth.
She later told police she was concerned about someone seeing her "cos I knew what I was doing was bad".
But Kapea kept smothering Jyniah on and off until she stopped screaming.
At one stage she picked up the "tired" looking baby and threw her against the bedroom wall, causing Jyniah's head and back to connect with it.
It was then that Kapea decided the child she had been trusted to care for "wasn't looking so good" so she put her in the shower to "make her better". Yet during the next few hours Kapea shook Jyniah several times with such ferocity that her head rolled back and forward. The baby vomited soon after and was making sounds "like she was wanting air". This prompted another shower. Kapea later told police she was panicking during this "cos I knew I had done something wrong".
By this stage Jyniah's eyes would not open. Her tiny body was shutting down - unable to take any more of the abuse. It was only then, as Jyniah lay badly injured and suffering, that Kapea called for an ambulance.
Jyniah died the following day, after which a horrific and sustained pattern of abuse began to be revealed. An autopsy uncovered evidence of other head injuries estimated to be 10 to 15 days old.
Kapea originally told police that Jyniah had fallen three times during the weekend, the first from the bed, the second when she slipped from wet hands in the shower and the third time from a changing table.
But, as the police investigation progressed and those versions of events failed to match scientific evidence, Kapea eventually told officers a different story.
This one included her inflicting a number of other injuries on the defenceless child before the fatal weekend.
They included smothering Jyniah on a regular basis to stop her from crying and holding her hand up against a gas heater three times until she cried - supposedly to teach her not to touch.
On other occasions Kapea admitted putting Jyniah into a closed chest freezer. She also hung her in a closet by the back of her T-shirt and swung her by her hair.
