KEY POINTS:
Two brothers accused of murdering toddler Nia Glassie appeared to cry as their mother gave evidence at their trial yesterday.
Wiremu and Michael Curtis began wiping their eyes soon after their mother, Tania Te Para-Heta, entered the High Court at Rotorua.
The brothers avoided looking at Ms Te Para-Heta for most of the hour she was on the witness stand.
Wiremu Curtis, 19, sat with his head leaning back and his hands covering his eyes, while Michael Curtis, 22, buried his face in his arms on a table where the accused were sitting. Both men wiped their eyes with their sweatshirts.
Ms Te Para-Heta was called by the Crown and told the court that Wiremu had come to her house in Auckland the day after 3-year-old Nia was admitted to hospital in a coma.
She said he was drunk and she could not make sense of what he was saying, but Michael called from the Starship hospital while Wiremu was there and said Nia might not survive the night.
She said she spoke to Michael at the hospital and he told her that what had happened to Nia was "an accident, that Wiremu had picked her up and she had fell off his shoulders".
The next day the police told her that Wiremu and Michael were no longer allowed to visit Nia.
When she demanded Wiremu tell her what had happened to Nia, he said: "Oriwa's going to pay. She did this to Nia. She's going to pay, and the old man too."
[Oriwa Kemp, Michael's girlfriend, is on trial for manslaughter. William Curtis, 47, faces a separate trial on charges of injuring Nia with intent, and assault.]
Under cross-examination, Ms Te Para-Heta admitted having concerns about Wiremu's learning from an early age, and agreed he was diagnosed as "developmentally slow" by specialists throughout his school years. He was said to be four or five years below his age group and easily influenced.
Justice Judith Potter warned the jury to disregard Wiremu's statement to his mother that Kemp was responsible for Nia's injuries. "An accused may have an interest to serve by blaming a co-accused."
