Editorial: The sad echoes of Baby Ru in ‘horrific’ Lower Hutt child abuse case

Editorial

When news broke of another “horrific” child abuse case in Lower Hutt involving two young siblings found with multiple broken bones and brain bleeds, one name came straight to mind.

Friday marked five months since toddler Ruthless-Empire, now known as Nga Reo Te Huatahi Reremoana Ahipene-Wall, died from severe head injuries at Hutt Hospital.

Baby Ru was living at a Taitā house with his mother Storm Wall and Rosie Morunga and her partner Dylan Ross when he suffered blunt force trauma to his head, either inflicted by a weapon or by slamming his tiny skull on a hard floor or table, according to police.

Police are confident one person inflicted those injuries on October 22, only two days before his second birthday, but nobody has yet been charged because none of the three people in the house have given police “a full, truthful account”.

Now it appears another family in the neighbouring suburb of Stokes Valley had been doing exactly the same thing.

Storm Wall, Rosie Morunga and Dylan Ross were living at the Poole St house in Taitā, Lower Hutt, when Baby Ru was critically injured.

On March 8, two children aged 4 and 5 were brought to hospital by ambulance following a suspected family harm incident.

The 5-year-old had brain bleeds, lacerations to internal organs and “multiple broken bones”, while the younger sibling had “extensive injuries and multiple fractures”, Detective Senior Sergeant Rebecca Cotton said.

She said the reason police made a public appeal for information on Friday, two weeks after the children were found, was they had just been released from hospital, and police believed some of those they had already spoken to were withholding information.

“These horrific injuries don’t simply happen. Someone knows something: you now need to talk to us.”

It soon emerged the wider family and children were known to police and Oranga Tamariki.

Oranga Tamariki had also received at least one “report of concern” about Baby Ru before he was killed. It’s now carrying out a review into every interaction with and decision about him and his whānau.

During a press conference on Friday, Cotton was specifically asked about the similarities with Baby Ru’s case and acknowledged how “frustrating” it was to be dealing with another incident involving severe child abuse and adults refusing to engage. On Monday, police said someone had since come forward with information to help the investigation.

Detective Senior Sergeant Rebecca Cotton is hoping someone will contact police with more information about how two young children suffered broken bones and internal injuries. Photo / RNZ

Police have made at least six public appeals for information in relation to the death of Baby Ru since October, seeking witnesses, sightings, CCTV footage and help to find items deliberately removed from the scene.

Last month, Detective Inspector Nick Pritchard said police believed they knew who got rid of vital evidence, but there was not enough information to charge them.

“Frustrating” doesn’t begin to cover how unacceptable it is for police to once again be faced with a group of adults closing ranks to protect themselves against charges over extreme child violence.

The standard of proof required for police to lay criminal charges in these cases is “beyond reasonable doubt”, making their job nigh-on impossible when persons of interest give conflicting accounts. If a jury can’t be sure who’s telling the truth, then there’s a high chance everyone will walk free.

In 2006, Chris Kahui was charged with murdering his 3-month-old twin sons Chris and Cru after a four-month police investigation where family members, dubbed the “tight 12″, closed ranks and refused to speak with detectives. He went on trial in 2008, but after seven weeks of evidence - and only 10 minutes of deliberations - the jury found him not guilty.

The main plank of the defence case was that the twins’ mother, Macsyna King, was the killer.

Four years later, Coroner Garry Evans delivered somewhat of a bombshell, pointing the finger of blame for the twins’ deaths squarely back at their father, saying Chris Kahui was the only person present when they suffered their fatal injuries.

In his 2012 findings, the coroner said he was satisfied on the “balance of probabilities”, the lower standard of proof required in civil court cases.

If any recent examples call for a rethink on the charges available to police, their willingness to arrest and the way the criminal justice system operates in regard to child abuse, then surely it’s these three Lower Hutt children.

Or should we simply brace for many more months of public appeals for information in the hope someone cracks?