Kahui can't explain why twins not taken to hospital

Chris Kahui told the inquest he had never done anything to hurt his children. Photo / Dean Purcell

Chris Kahui had no answer when asked at an inquest into the deaths of his three-month-old sons why he had not taken the boys to hospital when he noticed one of them was having difficulty breathing.

Chris Kahui paused before telling Coroner Garry Evans, in the Auckland District Court, that he did not have an answer.

"Any normal parent would have taken the twins to hospital. Why did you not act like a normal parent?", Mr Evans asked Mr Kahui.

Mr Kahui agreed he knew Cru was having difficulty breathing, was not feeding and he was not crying.

Police lawyer Simon Mount suggested that he did not call for an ambulance because he knew the doctors would find out what he had done.

He disagreed, and said he was annoyed with his then partner, Macsyna King, because he was expecting her to be back to feed the twins, Chris and Cru.

"You said you were `too amped' to go to hospital because you were being blamed for everything. You were furious with Macsyna," Mr Mount said.

Mr Kahui said he was not "furious", he was annoyed that she was not home on the two nights before police say the twins were fatally injured.

Earlier today, Mr Mount asked him if hurting the twins was a way of getting Ms King to come home. She was with her sister, Emily, on the afternoon and evening of June 12, 2006, when the injuries allegedly occurred.

He denied that, and said he did not know the twins had serious injuries.

Mr Kahui has told the inquest he had never done anything to hurt his children.

He never hit them, hurt them or shook them in any way, he said.

Mr Kahui said he thought Ms King must have caused their fatal injuries.

"I have never done anything to hurt my children. I never asked Macsyna if she did it. I didn't do it so I thought she must have."

Mr Kahui denied he had ever used methamphetamine or cannabis, but admitted to occasionally drinking alcohol.

In the weeks leading up to the twins' deaths, Mr Kahui spent almost every day visiting his seriously ill mother in hospital, so Ms King looked after the twins most of the time.

He did not know she was using methamphetamine when the twins were at home, he said.

Cru and Chris died in hospital from severe head injuries in June 2006.

Mr Kahui was found not guilty of their murders in a High Court trial in 2008, at which his lawyers said Ms King killed them.

Ms King has denied she caused the injuries which led to the babies' deaths.

Mr Kahui will continue to give his version of events at the inquest today.

- NZPA