Woman admits punishing grand-daughter with cold showers

A Southland woman accused of ill-treating her grand-daughter by giving her cold showers changed her plea to guilty after hearing the eight-year-old, and then her own son, give evidence in court.

The girl was the first witness in the jury trial yesterday of Annette Joyce Brown, 51, of Wyndham, 42km northeast of Invercargill, before Brown entered late guilty pleas to two of the five charges she originally faced, the Southland Times reported.

Brown admitted a representative charge of ill-treating the child in a manner likely to cause her unnecessary suffering between January 1, 2009, and March 5, 2010. She also admitted a second representative ill-treatment charge by instructing or inciting her daughter to give the girl cold showers as a punishment.

The Crown withdrew three charges of assault against the child.

Earlier, the girl's March 2010 video interview was played to the jury, where she told police her grandmother gave her cold showers and hit her.

Under cross-examination, the girl said the house had not run out of hot water and that she was also locked in a cupboard.

The girl's uncle and Brown's son Glen Hughes said that in the four years the girl lived there she would be given cold showers if she did something wrong or would be placed in a "little room" off the lounge.

Judge Michael Crosbie convicted Brown and she will be sentenced on August 5.

Rebecca Scandi Hughes, 17, was sentenced last year to 12 months' jail for assaulting the girl with a coal shovel.

- NZPA