Mother can't forgive partner who killed baby

Grieving mother Shannel Tata (L) is supported by family members. Photo / Alan Gibson

A 22-year-old man has been jailed for shaking and killing his 5-week-old baby, leaving his ex-partner imagining how their boy might have grown up.

Adam Christopher Lock was yesterday sentenced in the High Court at Rotorua to seven years and two months in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of three years and six months, for the manslaughter of his baby.

Shannel Tata, the baby's mother, was in the courtroom yesterday - but not in support of her ex-partner.

She could never forgive Lock and was disappointed at the sentence's length, Ms Tata later said.

"My heart hurts so much. At first, I was hoping it wasn't him - but once I found out, I felt nothing for him any more."

She still thinks about her baby boy, how he loved to be cuddled, and how he might have grown up, "what he would've been like, the things he would be doing".

She had her grandmother, aunt and cousin by her side yesterday, but Lock stood alone in the dock - his father killed himself when Lock was small, his mother lent no support, and his ex-partner, who had lived with him for three years, wanted him locked up.

Defence lawyer Michele Wilkinson-Smith told the court Lock had never intended to hurt his baby. He would never have beaten his children - he had just not realised how much shaking could hurt a baby.

"His greatest wish is to wake up and find his children and partner well and covered up in bed together," she said.

"His remorse and regret has always been consistent."

In March last year, Ms Tata and Lock had a heated argument, one of many fights.

Ms Tata left the house to cool down, while Lock lost control - he shook his baby so violently the baby's ribs cracked at the spine and his brain swelled up so his heart could not deliver enough blood to it.

And when the baby was rushed to hospital, x-rays found similar injuries a couple of weeks old.

Justice Peter Woodhouse said the injuries were consistent with shaking, and a caregiver might not necessarily have noticed the fractures - leaving open the possibility that Lock did not notice the harm he was inflicting.

But Justice Woodhouse said he was hesitant to take this view because it was clear how easy it was to injure a child.

"We're talking about a 5-week-old baby, an incredibly delicate human being," he said.

And the shakings were far from the only violent episodes Lock had been guilty of, though they were the first against his children.

Lock was convicted of several assaults against Ms Tata - while pregnant she had to go to hospital twice to check on her baby after Lock knocked her over.

Lock also spent four months in jail for assaulting a police officer in 2008.

Crown prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch said the baby's killing had come in the context of other violence, which was transferred to an infant.

"Violence had become a way of responding to the tension."

Lock initially blamed the baby's fatal injuries on his 1-year-old daughter, who he said had jumped on the baby while playing.