The nan once demanded two girls shave-off their own eyebrows. Photo / File
The nan once demanded two girls shave-off their own eyebrows. Photo / File
A Napier woman who had three grandchildren placed in her care has admitted six charges of assault relating to multiple abuses over almost 10 years.
Guilty pleas were made in Napier District Court after the Crown laid the representative charges in place of 15 other charges linked to offences allegedto have been committed between 2007 and 2017.
The children had been placed along with other siblings in the woman's care by Government agency Child Youth and Family, now known as Oranga Tamariki Ministry for Children.
Judge Geoff Rea remanded her on bail for sentencing on October 1.
A summary said the woman - whose name is suppressed to protect the identities of the children - used "physical violence and emotional abuse" as methods of control or punishment, and the children often witnessed each other being assaulted but felt unable to intervene.
The woman regularly punched the children in the face, pulled their hair and shaved their hair as forms of punishment, and once demanded two girls shave-off their own eyebrows. She also shouted insults at them.
On one occasion one of the children was slapped, punched in the face and dragged by one ear in to a cold shower after asking where some letters from her parents were, the summary said.
When the girl was 15, she was slapped in the face after she had been sent home after being found with cannabis at school and, a year later, she was punched in the nose for seeing a boy again after being forbidden to have a relationship with him.
