Seven-month old Hineteaorangi Maraki went to bed with her dad a happy, well-fed and healthy baby girl.
The next morning, October 8, 2019, she was found in that bed in a lifeless state.
An autopsy found she had a fractured skull and had suffered blunt force trauma to her head.
Her father David Sciascia, known also as Rawiri Sciascia, now 28, was charged with assaulting his daughter and with causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard.
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He was not charged with killing the girl. The cause of death could not be determined.
Senior pediatrician and former Children’s Commissioner Dr Russell Wills says Hinetaorangis injuries would have caused her profound pain. (File photo)
Details of the events leading up to and following the baby’s death were recounted in a two-day judge-alone trial before Judge Bridget Mackintosh in the Hastings District Court this week.
Police prosecutor Steve Manning told the judge that Sciascia and a teenaged relative had spent the night with his grandmother Judith Sciascia in her house at Porangahau, Hawkes Bay, on October 7, 2019.
Manning said the police case would focus on a series of videos and photos taken of the baby on the afternoon and evening of October 7, 2019, showing her to be in good health and certainly not suffering from the effects of skull fracture or blunt force trauma to the head.
He said Sciascia woke the next morning, went to the toilet and returned to the bed to discover the baby had vomited and was not breathing.
Efforts by Sciascia and later by paramedics to resuscitate the baby were unsuccessful.
Sciascia stood trial at Hastings District Court on Wednesday and Thursday. (File pic)
In short the issue will be how did the child receive the blunt force trauma injuries between when she went to bed … at about 9pm and when the defendant woke at 6.30 7am. The evidence appears to be that none of the other two people present at Porangahau had any contact with the baby at all, Manning said.
The two assault charges related to allegations by a young family member who claimed to see Sciascia hitting the baby with a cellphone to her head on October 3 and 4, 2019.
He hit her on the head because she cried because she wanted a bottle, the family member told the court.
David Sciascia, also known as Rawiri Sciascia, outside Hastings District Court.
Sciascias lawyer, Eric Forster, said he denied the alleged assaults occurred.
In a series of recorded police interviews played to the court Sciascia repeatedly denied causing the injuries. He did, however, plead guilty to a representative charge of assaulting his daughter at various times in her short life. These included whacking her on her arse and pinching her cheeks so hard it caused bruising.
Short videos and photos of Hineteaorangi taken before she went to bed with her father were shown in court. She was seen as a happy, giggling baby.
The young relative at the house spent hours with her and described her as laughing, happy, smiling with no sign of crying or distress.
Forensic pathologist Kate White described to the court two separate injuries to Hineteaorangi’s head, saying they were most likely to have been inflicted within 24 hours of her death.
White said she did not find evidence of brain injury.
Senior pediatrician and former Childrens Commissioner Russell Wills told the court the types of injuries suffered by Hinetearoangi were very substantial and it required enormous force to fracture the bones of the skull.
An infant’s skull was far more flexible than an adults skull and 30 times more force was required to fracture an infant’s skull, Wills said.
The trauma to a child of these bruises would be profoundly painful and distressing … They would be inconsolable for some time, unless they were so concussed they were semi-conscious, he said.
He did not think the injuries could have been caused by accident and said Ive only seen multiple injuries of this kind in inflicted injuries.
After being shown the videos of Hineteaorangi before she went to bed, Wills said there was no way she could have had the injuries at the time.
Sciascia did not call defence evidence. Judge Mackintosh reserved her decision and Sciascia was released on bail until a date late next month.