Carers dumped body in river: Crown

Here Teinakirai and Joseph Proude face manslaughter and other charges. Photos / Brett Phibbs

The soiled body of an intellectually disabled woman lay on a bathroom floor, surrounded by flies, for up to a week before she was wrapped in sheets, weighed down with a rock and rolled into a river, a court heard.

Kayakers found Patricia Joseph's body floating partly submerged in the Wairoa River in Clevedon on January 20, 2008.

Her top half had been wrapped in sheets and her bottom half was naked apart from an incontinence pad. The 37-year-old had been weighted with an 11kg rock that was tied to her with a fishing line.

Prosecutors allege her caregivers, Joseph Proude, 47, and Here Teinakirai, 53, assaulted her, causing her death some time after January 1, 2008, after she soiled herself on the floor of the Otara home they shared.

Proude and Teinakirai went on trial yesterday in the High Court at Auckland charged with manslaughter. Proude faces a further six assault charges and Teinakirai another 11 assault charges, allegedly committed between the time Ms Joseph started living with them, in October 2006, until her death.

Proude has admitted a second count of manslaughter for failing to provide Ms Joseph medical care, and of offering an indignity to human remains. Teinakirai denies both those charges.

The beating the Crown says led to Ms Joseph's death left her unable to move from the floor and she stayed there for up to a week before dying.

"She was beaten and as a result she sustained injuries, the extent of which left her unable to walk from where she lay in the bathroom," prosecutor Christine Gordon, SC, said.

Ms Gordon told the court the accused blamed each other for the assaults and both knew the other was being abusive, but neither did anything to stop it from happening.

"What is clear is that each knew she was unable to move from that location and stayed there for three to seven days and neither did anything to get any form of medical help for her."

Ms Gordon said during that time Teinakirai said she put an adult nappy on Ms Joseph and claimed to have tried to feed her Weetbix and porridge.

The court heard Teinakirai went to the bathroom and realised Ms Joseph was dead and a plan was formulated to dispose of her body.

Under the cover of darkness, the couple allegedly put the body into their car and took it to the river and weighted it down with a rock.