KEY POINTS:
A child witness at the Nia Glassie trial has told of being forced to run Nia a cold bath and make her sit in a corner by those accused of killing the 3-year-old.
The witness, who cannot be identified, said the accused would say "shut up" if the witness tried to resist the commands.
In a video interview played to the jury at the High Court at Rotorua yesterday, the witness also told of being silenced when Wiremu and Michael Curtis allegedly placed Nia in a tumble dryer.
"They told me to shut up because I told them to stop doing it because she might end up being sore and might not wake up," the witness said.
The child said Nia was in the dryer for 20 minutes and emerged with a bloody nose.
The court heard that another accused, Oriwa Kemp, would force Nia to take cold baths, and she would be dressed in soiled clothes afterwards.
When asked in a second video interview if there was anything the witness was forced to do to Nia that the witness did not want to, the child replied, "Yes, make her a cold bath ... [and] tell her to sit in the corner".
The witness is the second child to testify at the trial and, like the first, spoke of seeing Nia being put in the dryer, spun on a clothesline until she fell off, and forcibly placed in a sandpit with a bare bottom by the accused.
Both child witnesses are also alleged victims of assaults by the Curtis brothers, Kemp, and Michael Pearson, and yesterday's witness talked of feeling "sad" when wrestled by the adults.
Nia was allegedly kicked in the head by the Curtis brothers on July 20 last year, putting her into a coma from which she never woke.
The witness will be cross-examined by defence lawyers today.
