KEY POINTS:
The Otara parents who allegedly beat their 3-year-old son to death went into a panic when the child lapsed into a coma from which he never recovered.
In a Child, Youth and Family Service interview conducted the day after the boy's death, his now 10-year-old stepbrother told the interviewer his mother and stepfather were "panicking" and "running around" as the unconscious boy's face and lips turned purple.
The stepbrother said he had been watching cartoons before hearing a bang. He later heard relatives arrive at the house, followed by an ambulance.
He said he went into a back room of the house to see his stepbrother unconscious and turning purple, and people "massaging his foot".
The boy lapsed into a coma after the beating on January 31. The "hiding" included being hit with a metal baseball bat, prosecutors allege.
The boy was taken by ambulance to Auckland's Middlemore Hospital, before being transferred to Starship hospital. He was pronounced dead the next day after doctors failed to detect any brain stem activity.
The mother, 32, and stepfather, 27, each face a charge of murder, child cruelty and failing to provide the necessaries of life. An autopsy showed the boy suffered heavy bruising and wounds to his arms, legs, chest, face and groin.
The couple are defending the charges and both have name suppression.
In the CYFS interview, which was played to a High Court jury at Auckland yesterday, a conversation that began with questions about PlayStation machines and the boy's favourite sports soon became a discussion about the thrashings allegedly inflicted on all the children.
The boy talked of beatings - allegedly at the hands of both parents - inflicted with open fists, wooden and metal spoons, and sticks.
The dead boy was regularly beaten when he wet his pants, the stepbrother said. He said he never tried to intervene, or "I would get a hiding, as well".
The ultimately fatal beating was allegedly carried out because the boy had soiled his pants and then attempted to throw the "kaka" out the bathroom window.
The stepbrother claimed his stepfather regularly beat all the children, often using a steel spoon. The mother also hit the children, usually with a wooden spoon, though sometimes with a stick. She was "the boss" of the home.
The stepbrother said his parents often argued, but when asked what his stepfather looked like when he was angry, the boy said he could not tell as "he has always got his hoodie on".
The trial, before Justice Graham Lang, could run for up to three weeks.
