KEY POINTS:
With gasps and tears, family and friends heard the two not guilty verdicts in the trial of a 24-year-old man charged with injuring a 17-month-old toddler.
The jury took three hours to reach its verdict in the seven-day trial before Judge Brian Callaghan in the Christchurch District Court, Christchurch Court News website reported.
They found the man not guilty of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm to the toddler, and an alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard for the girl's safety.
Judge Callaghan discharged the man and told the jury that he believed it had not been an easy trial for them.
"The issues of this case have been particularly worrying, I know. It has been obvious to me that you have given this case very close attention from the first day."
The crown case was that the man shook or slammed the little girl against a soft surface on a day when she was irritable and grizzly, but the defence accused the girl's mother of being "a liar motivated by self-preservation".
The Christchurch District Court jury retired at 1.15pm, after the summing up by Judge Callaghan. It was immediately escorted to lunch by court staff, then returned to the jury room about 2.20pm to begin its deliberations.
It delivered its verdicts soon after 4.30pm.
Defence counsel Richard McGuire called only an expert witness as the defence case.
In his closing address to the jury he attacked the credibility of the toddler's mother, saying she was a liar motivated by self preservation, and the police had come to the wrong conclusion.
The man facing trial was the partner of the child's mother. The names of the man, the child, her mother, and grandmother have all been suppressed.
Mr McGuire said it was the mother of the child who was stressed, changed her statements, lied on oath at previous trials, and had no credibility at all.
Her statements changed as she was put under extreme pressure by the police while at the bedside of her child in Starship Hospital in Auckland, he said.
On the day of the alleged incident, which later led to the child being admitted to Christchurch Hospital after being found on the floor in a bedroom, the man was happy, had his own daughter with him who was following him everywhere, and was motivated and constructive.
When giving statements to the police he was co-operative, friendly and consistent, Mr McGuire said.
He told the jury they had to be sure beyond reasonable doubt that it was the partner and not the mother who might have been responsible, and sure that it had not been an accident.
He spoke of a possible fall from a bed onto a concrete floor covered in carpet and also raised whether the brain damage she received that day could have arisen as a "slowly evolving problem" from an earlier injury to her brain.
Amanda Fitzgibbon appeared with Mr McGuire for the defence. The crown prosecutors were Mark Zarifeh and Anna MacGougan.
- NZPA