KEY POINTS:
Lisa Kuka sat through the trial showing little sign she had been moved, even when the most graphic details of what happened to her child were dissected again and again.
Finally, on the day of her own defence, she cried.
But not for that long.
Apparently, she used
to be a good mother. Or so people said. Something went badly wrong.
When Nia's father, Glassie Glassie jnr, was on the scene the kids were well looked after, a nephew said.
Kuka had two children to two different fathers when she met him. With him, though, she lived a life of relative stability for 11 years and had four more children.
But then she caught Glassie cheating on her with one of her nieces and things fell apart.
After that, she'd just go and "get on the piss", says the nephew, who did not want to be named. "She just didn't care about nothing."
She had a fling with one of Glassie's mates, then she met Jules, an older half-brother of Wiremu and Michael Curtis and had a fling with him.
When that broke up, she met Wiremu - and Nia's life really went downhill.
Kuka was 34, 18 years older than Wiremu, who was then 16.
Kuka initially claimed she did not know Nia was being abused, but eventually she admitted to police that she knew about some of the mistreatment.
Nia, it seems, soon learned to fear Wiremu, her mother's teenage lover who described himself to police as Nia's "foster father".
The nephew said that on one occasion when he visited, Nia looked hungry so his girlfriend gave her some fish and chips. Second later, they saw Wiremu had stolen the food out of her hands.
The last time he saw Nia, when Kuka and Wiremu were living in Tokoroa, Nia was withdrawn and seemed scared of Wiremu.
One of Kuka's many sisters said Wiremu was a change in Lisa's taste in men. Usually she had someone of the right age to be her boyfriend, instead of someone young enough to be her son.
Kuka and Wiremu lived with her for a time while while Kuka was supposed to be saving to get their own place.
And she would borrow money to play the pokies.
"She'd play on Mondays and she'd kind of be broke that night unless she did a good win. But if she did win, she'd be broke by Wednesday," the sister said.
After Nia's death, Kuka gave a five-hour police interview which was played in court. In it, she tells how she felt when Glassie cheated on her. She was 21 when they met, in Waihi where they both worked. It was a perfect relationship, she told a policewoman.
"Yeah, um, could confide in each other about anything."
After she and Glassie split, she moved in with another sister and met met Michael Curtis, through Oriwa Kemp, his girlfriend.
Through Michael she met his half-brother, Jules. But that relationship ended five months later, like "another Glassie ... he ended up mucking around so ... "
She moved around, staying with relatives in Tauranga and Tokoroa and working fruit packing in Te Puke.
Then she met Wiremu, again through Michael.
In another interview with police the next month, Kuka admitted to seeing a wrestling move being used on Nia, but "because I wanted to go somewhere I just walked out the door".
She had not thought Wiremu would hurt Nia "and yes, I was in love with him".
She says Oriwa used to "whack, whack, whack Nia" with an open hand across the head because she thought she was ugly.
Nia would cry when she was hurt and Kuka said she would just sit there, though sometimes she argued with the others "but then they always had excuses, 'we look after her, you're at work, where are you?"'
She is asked if she had thought of taking Nia out of that environment to safety.
"To be honest, yes, but I would also have taken Wiremu," she says.
Finally, she becomes upset on the tape, and finally she looks upset in court.
On the tape she says, "Why her? Why did I not do nothing, why didn't I seek medical advice asap? Why?"
