Ms Te Para-Heta said Michael told her at Starship about what had happened to Nia.
"He said to me that it was an accident. That Wiremu had picked her up and she had fell off his shoulders."
Michael kept his head on the desk in the court where he and the other accused are sitting during the trial, at one point wiping at his eyes with a sweatshirt and avoiding looking at his mother.
Earlier, a witness at the trial told of feeding a scared child at the house where the 3-year-old lived and hearing abuse yelled at the child.
Suzie Kapa said she would hear lots of "loud, abusive" screaming coming from Nia's Frank St house, and she would turn up her music because she did not want to hear the noise.
She said she heard the words "Get over here you little black bitch" directed at a child who looked about 2 at the house.
Ms Kapa lived next door and would see the little girl outside the house, sometimes in the rain and cold.
The child would sometimes sit on her doorstep.
"She looked like she was in the same clothes all the time," Ms Kapa said.
"I used to comment to my partner that she looked like she hadn't been changed."
Ms Kapa said the child did not look clean and had stains on her knees where she used to sit in the dirt.
"She didn't look very well for a child of her age ... She looked so skinny ... To me, she looked scared."
The child was quiet, and Ms Kapa would give her toys and food.
"I thought she looked hungry ... When I put my hand out to her she looked like I was going to hit her."
Ms Kapa said the child would take the food, but would run away and not say anything.