The clothesline on which Nia Glassie was spun. Photo / Sarah Ivey

The clothesline on which Nia Glassie was spun. Photo / Sarah Ivey

13D Frank St was a mess when police began their investigation.

Bourbon boxes, pizza cartons and kids' shoes had been chucked through a hole in a broken ponga fence where the Rotorua rental property backed on to a reserve.

Empty bottles littered the ground inside the fence, and out the back of the small three-bedroom house in the low-income neighbourhood of Koutu was a table with broken legs and a baseball bat leaning against the wall.

Inside, a bowl of half-eaten noodles was on a table.

This was the scene of the crime; the mess the aftermath of a 21st party which raged one Saturday afternoon and night with loud music and brawls while a battered, malnourished little girl lay dying.

You'd need a Big Brother camera to get across the horror of the last days of Nia Glassie's miserably short life.

Failing Big Brother, child witnesses in the trial of who killed Nia, who assaulted her and who neglected her the most, probably told it best.

The children's identities were suppressed but what they said in court was hard to listen to.

They sometimes mixed up what happened when and ran incidents of abuse together. It didn't matter. What came out loud and clear was the nature of the abuse that went on and on, usually when Nia's mother was at work, but sometimes when she was there.

What was done to Nia was callous and violent, perpetrated by a group of no-hopers who lived and partied together, who smoked pot together and who for one reason or another didn't like the little girl they failed to protect.

Nia Maria Glassie was three. They thought she was ugly.

In court, via a television screen, a little girl says: They were kicking her to the couch.

Who?

Wiremu and Michael.

What with?

With their feet.

They kicked Nia in the head, and she points to the front of her head.

How many times?

Three times.

Then what happened?