Mother let men abuse her two-year-old son

Jill Tania Tito

A woman has admitted allowing two men to abuse her young son and force him to eat dog faeces.

Jill Tania Tito today pleaded guilty in the Tauranga District Court to willfully permitting the ill treatment of a child.

The 24-year-old, from Whakatane, was remanded until February 21 for sentencing.

The boy was hospitalised with serious injuries last September.

At a depositions hearing last November, it was alleged Tito told police she knew the two men were regularly assaulting her son but saw no reason to report it.

Detective David McIntosh read Tito's statement at the depositions hearing, saying he asked if she knew what assaults called "lags" were and what happened to her son during them.

Tito replied: "They tackle him, but not hard."

She said she would try to stop the assaults when she heard her child scream but the men did not listen. She did not report the assaults to police. "I didn't see why I should," Tito told the interviewer.

The men had also tackled and body-slammed her, but she was able to do it back.

She had allowed her son to stay in the environment because she was "stupid" and "didn't think it was bad", the court heard last year.

She said there had been "heaps" of events leading up to the attack which resulted in her son being taken to hospital.

In a separate hearing last year, Whakatane District Court was told that Jeremy Tawa, 23, and Harley Wharewera, 19, subjected the toddler to abuse in a room named the "cell".

They threw him against the wall, punched and hit him. One two occasions the boy was forced to eat dog faeces.

Wharewera was sentenced to 10 years in prison on October 10 on charges of intent to cause grievous bodily harm, wilful ill-treatment, assault and injuring with intent.

Tawa was sentenced to two years in jail.

The toddler is now in the care of Child, Youth and Family.


- NEWSTALK ZB, HERALD STAFF