The jury is deliberating after an eight day trial in which Tamehana Huata was charged with the manslaughter and injuring with intent to injure his 2 year-old stepson. Photo/ Warren Buckland.
The jury is deliberating after an eight day trial in which Tamehana Huata was charged with the manslaughter and injuring with intent to injure his 2 year-old stepson. Photo/ Warren Buckland.
The jury of a High Court trial in Napier have retired for the evening after hearing the closing arguments in the case of a man accused of killing his 2 year-old stepson.
The jury began deliberations at 2pm today and at 5pm the court heard the jurors would retire andresume again tomorrow morning.
They will have to decide whether Tamehana Huata, 19, is guilty or not guilty of the manslaughter and injuring with intent to injure Matiu Wereta at his Flaxmere home in October 2015.
Emergency services were called to the home to find Matiu unconscious with numerous marks on his body and a serious head injury on the morning of October 12.
The boy died in Hawke's Bay Hospital as a result of the serious head injury two days later.
Over the eight day trial the prosecution argued Huata, who was 17 year-old at the time, snapped and lost the plot; inflicting multiple bruises, bite marks and a fatal head injury.
"Either that force has come from the defendant or that force has been generated by a 14 kilo gram, two and a half year-old boy and he's done it to himself somehow, accidentally," crown prosecutor Steve Manning said.
The defence claimed it was not within unreasonable doubt that the boy, known to be hyperactive, had catapulted into a brick wall after accidentally tripping on a towel in what defence lawyer Russell Fairbrother described as a "freak accident".
However, Mr Manning told the jury in his summary to consider Matiu's hyperactive personality as a factor that would have seen Huata "out of his depth" while trying to shower the boy that morning.
"Parents can snap, event the best parents can snap," he said.
Mr Fairbrother said it had been a privilege to represent such a decent young man, and alluded to the culmination of experts who each concluded that nothing had been ruled impossible during the trial.
"There is a very real possibility that this young fellow died as a result of a freak accident. No one says it's impossible," he said.
The court awaits the jury's verdict this afternoon.
