A toddler who took off their gumboots and kicked their newborn sibling in the head was then slapped hard in the face by the mother.
Another child in the room who saw what happened became upset and was sent to their bedroom, and began kicking the walls.
The mother heard and gathered a phone charger, which she coiled in a loop and used to hit the child on the leg.
The woman, who remained subject to separate Family Court proceedings, appeared in the Nelson District Court on Friday seeking a discharge without conviction, partly because she was suffering postpartum depression at the time.
Despite strong police opposition, the woman’s application for the discharge succeeded, meaning no convictions were entered for her earlier guilty pleas to two charges of assaulting a child, one with a weapon.
Judge Ian Carter accepted there were “significant stressors” in the woman’s life, including the recognised but not officially diagnosed postpartum depression, and the potential harm to her future employment chances if a conviction was entered.
He also recognised she was expecting her fifth child and was facing other personal challenges.
The woman, who sobbed with relief at the decision, was partway through studies aimed at securing her future, the court heard.
The woman’s lawyer, Amanda Godwin, said her time away from the workforce would be a barrier to her returning to work, and a conviction would only make it harder.
“The circumstances that led to the offending were during a period of acute stress and one month post-partum,” Godwin said.
She said the police opposition was simplistic and had overlooked a key issue in that the woman had been dealing with four children on her own, when her partner had recently returned to work.
Godwin said the woman’s family background was also “fairly complex”.
Police prosecutor Rebecca Terry said an assault against a child was “inherently serious” and that aggravating features in this case were that there were two assaults against two children in their home.
The older child was hit hard and was left visibly distressed, she said.
Terry said in opposing the application for a discharge that family violence offending often had lifelong impacts and that should not be minimised.
She also said that while the woman had no criminal history, police did not accept that what happened was an isolated incident, according to the number of family violence call-outs.
The court heard the mother was at times the alleged victim documented in the reports.
“We accept parenting is difficult but the victims in this matter are two children,” Terry said.
Both assaults happened on the morning of June 17 last year, when the mother was on the couch in the lounge of their home with her newborn baby.
According to the police summary of facts, her toddler approached and “kicked the new baby in the head”.
The mother then shouted at the toddler and slapped the child in the face, causing the child to cry.
The older child became upset, so was sent to their room and began kicking the walls.
Police said the mother picked up her phone charger from the lounge floor, folded it in a loop, went into the room and hit the child on the leg.
The assault caused the child to shout and cry, police said.
Judge Carter said mitigating factors were “numerous”, but he also noted relevant aggravating factors.
“She has no previous history and she had acknowledged she has done wrong, and has acknowledged the harm and distress caused to the children,” he said.
Judge Carter said the woman was entitled to some credit for her remorse and regret over what had occurred.
He said there were also ongoing Family Court matters in the background, and the woman’s eldest child presented extra challenges.
Judge Carter said the pre-sentence report assessed the woman as being at low risk of reoffending and had since taken steps to get support.
He said the defendant had suffered “dire consequences” from the offending which could be seen as punitive, in that she currently had only supervised access to her children.
In reaching his decision to grant the application for a discharge without conviction, Judge Carter said there could be compounding negative effects on the woman’s mental health from a conviction, the most significant being employment-related.
