KEY POINTS:
The stepfather of a four-year-old girl seriously injured when she stepped out of a moving caravan he was towing has been jailed for two months.
The 29-year-old man pleaded guilty to careless driving causing injury, after charges of unlawfully exposing a child to danger and neglecting a child were withdrawn.
He cannot be named as he is awaiting trial on unrelated charges.
Police prosecutor Miriam Charmley said that on May 30, 2007, the young girl and her 18-month-old brother were asleep in a caravan towed by the man near Gisborne.
The young girl opened the caravan door, stepped out and fell on to the road, fracturing her skull and breaking her cheekbone in the process.
The man continued some distance up the road before he turned around and found the girl with some people who saw her step out.
He picked her up and drove to a relative's house. The girl was then taken to Gisborne Hospital.
Judge Christopher Harding said the man would have to live the rest of his life knowing that he was responsible for what happened to the girl.
It was offending toward the serious end of the scale.
Defence counsel Mark Sceats said the man left the children in the caravan because they fell asleep and he had not wanted to wake them.
- NZPA
