Tot's killer not a monster - judge

Rikki Ngatai-Check, right, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for the murder of two-year-old Karl Perigo-Check, right. Photos / Wanganui Chronicle

"You did a monstrous thing, but I do not think you are a monster," a High Court Judge told the killer of a two-year-old boy today.

In Wellington, Justice Joseph Williams sentenced Rikki Leigh Scott Ngatai-Check, 23, to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

Ngatai-Check was found guilty last November at a trial in Whanganui of murdering his partner's toddler, Karl Perigo-Check - the youngest of her seven children - on October 24, 2009.

He was not related to the boy, whom he kicked to death in a fury when the child wet himself.

"No one says you intended to kill Karl," Justice Williams said.

However, the attack on the "particularly small" and vulnerable two-year-old was vicious and arose from spontaneous anger and aggression.

Ngatai-Check was in a secret relationship with the little boy's mother, Lilah McGregor, which was stressful because the couple were uncomfortable about who knew.

Ms McGregor's former partner and Karl's father, Karl Check senior, was in jail for his part in the 2007 drive-by gang shooting of two-year-old Jhia Te Tua in Wanganui.

Ngatai-Check had a lot to do with Ms McGregor's children, regularly babysitting them and claiming to love them.

He was left in charge of Karl jnr on the day the toddler died. The child was asleep on the sofa while Ngatai-Check "spotted" cannabis with a friend, and later woke up wet.

"There is no argument that you were stoned at that point," Justice Williams said.

"You got angry, grabbed him and spun him around."

The child hit a coffee table, breaking ribs which punctured his right lung and caused bleeding in his chest cavity.

Ngatai-Check left him at the toilet and went to the bedroom to play video games.

Five or 10 minutes later, Karl came in trailing a line of toilet paper.

"You sat up on the bed and kicked him roundhouse style in the stomach, causing internal tissue to tear," the judge told the young man in the dock.

"Such was your fury that you stood up and kicked Karl again, this time even harder."

The toddler was rammed against a wardrobe door, splitting his pancreas.

He was "virtually dead on arrival" when Ngatai-Check rushed him to Wanganui Hospital in his truck.

Justice Williams said beatings from a stepfather when he was young taught Ngatai-Check that children should "harden up".

In later years he had been in the shadows of the Wanganui drug and gang scene, which normalised brutality. There, "violence is not just OK, it is downright cool".

Noting that Ngatai-Check had no previous history of violent behaviour, the judge said the stress of his hidden relationship was possibly made worse on the day because "you probably didn't want baby Karl dumped on you again and just wanted to chill out".

The prisoner had expressed genuine remorse, telling Justice Williams in a letter: "It wasn't the real me that day. It was so out of character for me to do such a thing."

But the judge said there were "sadly too many cases like this", in which adults abused the trust of vulnerable children - some much worse than Ngatai-Check's.

The mandatory 17-year non-parole period was introduced by Parliament as a reminder that "these little people are at our mercy. We can so easily kill them".

- NZPA







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