Nia Glassie. Photo / Supplied
A neighbour of Nia Glassie twice saw a little girl being hauled on to a clothesline by Michael Curtis, and watched him and other adults stand around laughing when she fell off.
Rawhiti Simiona was outside having a cigarette at his mother's Rotorua house on July 18 last
year when he saw Curtis throwing the girl on to the clothesline at a nearby property.
He said Curtis grabbed the girl first by her armpit and spun her round on the line until she fell off, and then picked her up by the leg and put her back on the line while she was crying. She fell again.
Testifying yesterday at the trial of the five people accused of killing 3-year-old Nia, Mr Simiona said Oriwa Kemp and another man were also present, and the trio laughed at the girl when she landed on the ground, saying: "See, see what happens when you want to get on the f***ing line."
Curtis, his brother Wiremu and Kemp are charged with wilfully illtreating Nia by spinning her on a clothesline until she fell off.
Mr Simiona said another child was first placed on the line and gently spun, while Kemp stood with her arms outstretched to "make sure that the kid didn't come off".
While this was happening, Mr Simiona heard a little girl moaning and saying "I wanna get on the line too". He said Kemp and Curtis told the girl to shut up, then Curtis grabbed her under the armpit and threw her on the line after taking the other child off with "affection".
He said the way the girl was placed on the line was different. "It was like she was chucked up there."
Mr Simiona said the girl held on to the centre pole as Curtis pushed the line around, and she was laughing at first.
She began screaming, but Curtis continued swinging the line, while Kemp and the other man watched. The girl then "flew off" the line and the adults laughed, while she cried.
Mr Simiona said Curtis then hauled the girl on to the line a second time, and she landed on the wires between the supporting bars.
"She tried to grab onto whatever she could hold ... She wasn't on there long before going through the wires and falling back to the ground."
