The trial is being held in the Hutt Valley District Court this week. Photo / Google Maps
The trial is being held in the Hutt Valley District Court this week. Photo / Google Maps
A social worker has described trying to intervene as a Hutt Valley woman dragged her adopted daughter across the floor - moments after the girl had disclosed she was being beaten at home.
But the woman accused of the abuse said the girl and her sister are “both liars” and were exaggerating in their interviews with police.
The mother, who has name suppression to protect the complainants’ identities, has admitted slapping her two adopted daughters and pulling their hair as a form of discipline, but said the violence did not go further than that.
The social worker, who was primarily a family friend through the church, today told the court she found the girl running down the street in a “hysterical” state in November 2021, having run away from home.
The woman took the girl back to her own home, just around the corner from where the girl was living with her adoptive mother. She contacted the mother to let her know she had the girl and that she was safe.
“I kept asking her what was wrong but she was quite vague, just that she didn’t want to go home, that she was scared to go home,” the social worker said.
Eventually, the girl told the woman she was being beaten at home.
“She explained that it was just from mum and that it was punching, slapping, kicking . . . I then felt worried that I had just called the parents to pick her up.”
It was about that time the defendant came into the house to take the girl home. The girl refused to go, sitting on the couch with her arms folded.
The woman faces charges of assault with a weapon, impeding breathing, and wounding.
The social worker said the defendant grabbed the girl by the wrist and dragged her across the floor through her lounge and kitchen.
“I was trying to stop the situation and bide time and suggest that we have her at our house until things had calmed down. I tried to separate their wrists,” the woman said.
She considered calling Oranga Tamariki or the police, but said by the time the girl had got in her parents’ car, the situation had de-escalated, and she wanted to try to resolve the conflict “in-house” before involving the authorities.
She made an incident report to her own workplace and contacted the church pastors to look into whether the parents could be given more support for dealing with the girls.
The woman said she did not see the girls very often after that, though on one occasion they came up to her at church and told her they were not supposed to speak to her anymore.
She believed matters had calmed down at home, until the younger girl showed up at her door one afternoon in 2022 looking to do chores to earn money.
As the pair talked, the girl suddenly said she and her mother “had a fight” that morning, and that her mother had bitten her hand. She showed the woman a small circular bruise between her thumb and index finger.
The girl spoke about regular beatings, including being hit with a wooden rod.
“I said that I thought we needed to talk to a social worker. She didn’t want to because she didn’t want her mum to get in trouble,” the woman said.
She ended up making a report of concern to Oranga Tamariki (OT).
Under cross-examination, the woman confirmed the younger girl had not told her that she was dragged by her hair or choked that day.
A school counsellor also gave evidence today, saying she became involved with both girls when they got into trouble for stealing phones at school.
She said the younger girl had briefly mentioned some violence at home, which caused her concern. But the counsellor said she did not want to report it to OT right before the school holidays in case OT did not uplift the girls.
“I thought I could compromise [their safety] further by rushing into it. I wish now I had, but I just didn’t have enough information then,” she said.
After the school holidays she met with the girls, who told her about incidents such as the mother allegedly choking the younger girl and biting her on the hand, and on another occasion pulling the older girl to the ground and beating her with the metal end of a dog collar.
She said the younger girl showed her a scar on her hand from the alleged biting incident.
“I couldn’t let them go back into the home when I knew all of that had happened,” she said.
She called OT and the girls were uplifted the same day.
Yesterday the court heard from a teacher and principal who discovered an open wound on the younger girl’s head. She was aged about 8 at the time.
The girl said in her police interview the injury happened when her mother swung her by her hair and let her go, causing her to fall headfirst into the corner of a dressing table.
The mother also gave evidence this afternoon, saying she had only been pulling on the girl’s arm and that when she let go, the girl fell. She said she did not realise she had hit her head and knew nothing about the wound until the school called her.
She said she did not know why the girls had laid these complaints against her, but that they were “both liars” and she never believed a word that came out of their mouths.
The defendant said she sometimes slapped the girls and pulled their hair out of frustration because they constantly stole items and money, then lied about it to her. She flatly denied any incidents of choking, or beating the girls with objects or a closed fist.
She also said the girls would hit their own hands and hit their heads on the table when they were angry at her.
“They’re making everything bigger than what I did to them,” she said.
“I’ve never done anything to those girls to hurt them, never.”
She has pleaded guilty to two representative charges of assault on the girls, involving slapping and hair-pulling, but has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault with a weapon, impeding breathing, and wounding a child.
The trial has come to and end, and Judge Chris Sygrove will release a decision later this week.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
