Mother denies dislike motivated killing of child

A woman accused of strangling and choking one of her 8-month-old twin sons to death has denied that she never liked the child.

Sharon Harrison-Taylor, 39, is charged with murdering Gabriel Harrison-Taylor in their rented Mt Wellington home in January last year.

Her lawyer, Lorraine Smith, has told the jury in the High Court at Auckland that Harrison-Taylor was suffering post-natal depression and post-traumatic stress at the time.

She had not fully recovered from giving birth and was suffering chronic abdominal pains that reduced her ability to cope.

Mrs Smith said that Harrison-Taylor was not fully responsible for the killing and was guilty of the lesser crime of infanticide.

Harrison-Taylor told the court that she pushed Gabriel's face into the pillow in his cot to make him go to sleep. She thought he had gone to sleep and said that she went to sleep herself. Some hours later she found the child was cold.

She said that initially she believed it was cot death but later, after talking to a psychiatrist, realised that she had killed the infant.

Harrison-Taylor's account is rejected by the Crown prosecutors, Christine Gordon and Louise Freyer, who say that she lost her temper when the child spat his food over her.

They say she whacked the child's head against the side of his cot, strangled and choked him around the neck and pinched his nostrils to stop him breathing.

Harrison-Taylor denied an allegation from Ms Gordon that she favoured the other twin, Sam, and that she never liked Gabriel.

Ms Gordon observed that pushing a baby's face into a pillow was not how to quieten a crying child.

"I suggest you wanted to quieten him for good. ... You lost your temper and you decided you didn't want him around any more. ...

"You stopped his breathing so that you could pretend it was a cot death. ... You kept your hands on him long enough to make sure you killed him."

The allegations were denied by Harrison-Taylor, who accused Ms Gordon of being a "cold, icy woman".

Ms Gordon said that when Harrison-Taylor realised that cot death was a hopeless defence, she decided to give infanticide a go.

The prosecutor said that Harrison-Taylor knew what she had done that morning and then spent some hours figuring out her story before calling the ambulance service.

Harrison-Taylor said she could not remember telephoning the ACC that afternoon in relation to a claim she had made.

"You were more concerned that day about your claim against the doctor who you say had butchered you than you were about your baby son," Ms Gordon said.

Harrison-Taylor denied the allegation.