Napier Courthouse, Hastings St, Napier - Tamehana Huata, 19, was sentenced in the Napier Court for killing toddler Matiu Wereta, his 2-year-old stepson, in October 2015. 11 April 2017 NEWS Hawke's Bay
Napier Courthouse, Hastings St, Napier - Tamehana Huata, 19, was sentenced in the Napier Court for killing toddler Matiu Wereta, his 2-year-old stepson, in October 2015. 11 April 2017 NEWS Hawke's Bay
A Napier woman has admitted giving methamphetamine to her school-aged daughter who says it was given to calm her down amid her claims that she been stupefied into having sex with a man about three times her age.
The admission came yesterday as the woman reversed her plea to thecharge on the second day of a trial in Napier District Court, following the dismissal of a charge that she was a party to the rape alleged to have been committed by the man on the girl when she was 15.
The dismissal, after an application by defence counsel Eric Forster at the end of the prosecution case, and the guilty plea to the methamphetamine charge, immediately sparked a decision by Judge Tony Adeane to call a mistrial in the prosecution of the man, who was also appearing in the trial pleading not guilty to charges of stupefaction and rape and denying the events ever took place.
The woman said in a statement to police she had not trusted authorities and decided to deal with it her "own way" by getting someone else to visit the man.
On Monday the girl told the court that she was at home with her mother about December 2004 when the man arrived and drove her over 100km to a Porangahau cottage where after ringing her mother to say she was concerned about adult nudity, drug-taking and drinking in the house she lost consciousness and awoke the next morning to find the man had sex with her.
She said that after the man took her back to Napier she told her mother what had happened and was given the methamphetamine.
Mr Forster argued there was no evidence to implicate the woman in the making of any arrangement for her daughter to have sex with the man and she could therefore not be a party to any such offence.
The woman was remanded for sentence on September 1, and the man has been remanded to September 15 for the setting of a date for a new trial.
