A mother accused of deliberately harming her child during medical treatment evaded police when told they were searching her home, a detective says.
The officer in charge of the case involving Child X, whose mother is on trial for alleged ill treatment, broadly referred to as medical child abuse, said no one was home when a police team went to search her home in February 2022.
The senior detective, who was the final of 57 Crown witnesses to give evidence in the High Court at Nelson, said he phoned the woman, who was out at the time and who said she would return but never did.
“She never came back and did not answer her phone,” he said.
When police did eventually reach her, a search of her phone later revealed 143,000 text messages, images and notes from January 2019 to December 2020, which police alleged were relevant to the case.
Included in the material were videos played to the court which showed Child X drinking an energy drink, and another of the child appearing to enjoy eating a banana muffin, when the mother had expressed concern to doctors the child was unable to eat properly.
The police investigation also led to the extraction of more than 7000 pages of medical records, the detective said.
In the course of the trial, it was revealed that one witness was given a copy of another’s witness notes in error, which sparked a late call from the defence to access thousands of pages of documents including records of communication between police and witnesses.
Police investigation under microscope
The police investigation, including record-keeping, was under the microscope today as defence lead, Marie Dyhrberg, KC, questioned the integrity of witness evidence and steps taken to ensure it reflected each witness’ own independent views.
The detective agreed that where witnesses might have overlapping involvement with each other, such as in a workplace, there was a risk they may influence each other, but that he had sought to avoid those risks.
Dyhrberg said her questions were around ensuring “basic principles of fairness” and to ensure witness evidence had not been shaped or influenced in any way.
The detective, whose name was suppressed, said in answer to a question about whether he remained alert to potential risks of bringing witnesses together, it had been a particularly long investigation involving many people who worked together.
He said they were questioned at a time when it had not yet been established if a prosecution would proceed.
Final Crown witness
The detective was the final Crown witness to give evidence in the trial, which is now at the end of its sixth week.
The mother, who has name suppression to protect the child’s identity, is defending four charges of ill-treatment of a child and three charges of infecting with disease.
The mistreatment was alleged to have occurred over a 19-month period. The allegations arose from medical interventions required for the child’s assisted feeding and treatment for what presented as complex intestinal failure.
The Crown alleged the child’s subsequent illnesses, including sepsis from bacterial infections, were the result of deliberate contamination and deliberate tampering of lines.
The defence argued the events that formed the charges arose from management of a “medically fragile child living with complicated medical devices” and the actions of a desperate mother trying to help her child, who originally presented with suspected reflux disorder, and failure to thrive.
Despite intervention by multiple medical staff in various hospitals around the country through 2019 and 2020, including senior specialists in their field, none were able to pinpoint why the child was unable to eat properly.
A report of concern was lodged with Oranga Tamariki and the child was removed from the mother’s care, following a diagnosis of medical child abuse by consultant paediatric gastroenterologist Dr Amin Roberts.
A police investigation followed and the mother was charged in April 2023.
The detective told the court he was made aware in December 2020 of the report of concern lodged with OT, regarding concerns a child was being deliberately harmed by the mother.
In April 2021, he was asked to investigate the allegations and started the process of obtaining documents from health boards around the country dating back from January 2017 to July 2023.
The warrant to search the woman’s phone was obtained in February 2022 and, two months later, the detective advised the woman and her lawyer of what had been found.
The detective was told the woman was exercising her right to silence.
She was arrested and charged a year later after further investigation, the detective said.
The trial continues next week.
