Mother jailed for pouring boiling water on her son fails to overturn conviction

A boy sustained severe burns to 25 per cent of his body after his mother poured boiling water on him.

A mother who tied her son to a bed and poured boiling water over him, leaving him with serious burns to 25 per cent of his body, continues - more than two years into her jail sentence - to deny harming him.

The woman, who has maintained the boy caused his injuries when he tripped while carrying a pot of hot pasta water, has recently tried to have her conviction overturned, claiming her son was an unreliable witness.

According to the High Court decision released on December 19, the boy, when he spoke with authorities, had agreed with his mother’s account of how the burns were caused.

But he later told to a caregiver that his mother had actually tipped water on him from a kettle while he was restrained to a bed with a plastic bag beneath him.

The woman, who has permanent name suppression to protect the identity of her son, denied the accusation but pleaded guilty to a charge of ill-treatment of a child, relating to her failure to seek appropriate medical assistance for his burns.

She went on to defend a charge of intentionally causing him grievous bodily harm at a judge-alone trial in the Palmerston North District Court.

Judge Stephanie Edwards found the woman guilty and in October 2021 she was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years imprisonment.

However, last month she appealed her conviction, submitting the evidence relied on by Judge Edwards at trial was insufficient for her to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the woman’s guilt.

In the High Court decision of Justice Peter Churchman, who heard the appeal, it stated the boy was 11 years old when he was taken to Palmerston North Hospital on May 19, 2019, with severe burns to 25 per cent of his body.

He was transferred to the National Burns Centre at Middlemore Hospital the next day.

Hospital staff became concerned that his injuries were not consistent with his mother’s account of how they occurred. She claimed that on May 14, 2019, her son was cooking pasta when he tripped and spilled the pot of boiling water and pasta on himself.

But police and Oranga Tamariki conducted a joint investigation and obtained evidence she had been buying items used to treat his burns at home from May 9 onwards.

The boy was discharged into the care of an Oranga Tamariki-approved caregiver in mid-August and within a few days of arriving, he revealed to the caregiver it was his mother who had caused the burns. He later repeated the accusations to a social worker.

The decision stated he had not previously told anyone because he was scared his mother “would get angry”, and that she had instructed him to tell people it was the pasta water.

At trial, Judge Edwards considered an evidential video interview (EVI) of the boy, in which he expanded upon his account of how he sustained the burns.

Judge Stephanie Edwards found the woman guilty at a judge-alone trial in 2021. Photo / Stuart Munro

She found the details he gave on the incident were “quite specific and therefore plausible” but also noted that some of his evidence seemed “incredible, other parts exaggerated or embellished”.

But it was the expert medical evidence from Richard Wong-She, who was the clinical lead at the National Burns Centre at Middlemore Hospital and the boy’s treating clinician, that determined the case for Judge Edwards.

Wong-She accepted the pasta water scenario as a possible cause of the injuries but stated the boy’s account was the “more likely cause” of the burns.

On appeal, the woman submitted Judge Edwards erred in failing to find that the boy was an unreliable witness, and that there were discrepancies between his account of what occurred and the medical evidence.

She argued the boy’s credibility was damaged by false allegations he made in his EVI, and that Wong-She’s medical evidence was entirely dependent on the accuracy and reliability of the boy’s statement.

“The appellant submits that the medical evidence, in combination with the boy’s account, was therefore insufficient to establish the charge proved beyond reasonable doubt,” Justice Churchman’s decision stated.

In his analysis, Justice Churchman found Judge Edwards had carefully considered Wong-She’s evidence.

“The judge considered both possibilities and was entitled to find the charge proven beyond reasonable doubt on the basis of the evidence before her, in particular that of Mr Wong-She.”

In dismissing the woman’s appeal against her conviction, Justice Churchman said he was not satisfied there was anything in her submissions that gave rise to a real risk that the verdict reached was unsafe.

“Neither do I disagree with the factual findings reached by the judge.”

The woman must serve one-third of her sentence before being eligible for parole.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff where she covered crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.