KEY POINTS:
A man has been charged with murdering his baby daughter three years ago.
Joshua Woodcock entered no plea to murdering 3 1/2-month-old Sarah Rebekah Woodcock-Haddock when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court yesterday.
The baby's mother and Woodcock's partner, Jaymie Ellen Natasha Haddock, is serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for failing to seek medical attention despite knowing the child had been harmed.
She was sentenced in December after a jury found her guilty of wilful neglect.
The sentencing judge said her offending was "close to the worst of its type" and she had shown no remorse.
Police said only two people - Haddock and Woodcock - were with Sarah when she died on March 12, or the early hours of March 13, 2005.
Woodcock, 23, was arrested after police received new information, understood to have come from Haddock after she was sent to prison.
Woodcock, who is unemployed, has also been charged with assaulting Sarah between March 5 and March 11, 2005, causing her grievous bodily harm between February 27 and March 12, 2005, and wilful neglect.
He was granted bail and ordered to reappear in the court for a predepositions hearing on March 25.
Sarah died from a fractured skull which led to haemorrhaging causing her death. A pathologist at Haddock's trial said the injury was non-accidental and would have been inflicted by blunt force.
The baby also had broken ribs, and severe bruising on her left side which the pathologist found was caused by massive internal bleeding likely to have been inflicted between a week and two weeks before she died.
The pathologist, Dr Rex Ferris, said he had never seen such an injury in an infant during 40 years of practice, and was surprised she survived it for at least a week.
The baby also had other head injuries.
Haddock, who was 17 at the time and caring for three children, was told by a nurse to take the baby to a doctor on February 28, but did not do so.
She was originally charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder, although at that time no one had been charged with the murder.
Justice Paul Heath said in sentencing her that the baby would have lived out the last fortnight of her life in great distress.
Detectives who have been investigating the case for the past three years attended Woodcock's court appearance yesterday.
Outside the courtroom, inquiry head Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper said police had worked with the family for 12 months to secure Haddock's conviction.
"As a result of that we were given information that allowed us to act and bring him [Woodcock] before the courts."
Woodcock was bailed to his sister's house in Hamilton where he has lived for the past two years.
His bail conditions include not associating with children under 6, unless accompanied by another adult.
Judge Robert Spear also forbade him from contacting Linzi Shaw, a relative who is caring for Haddock's two other children, one of whom is also Woodcock's child, except for the purposes of visiting those children.
Outside court, when asked what he had to say about the serious charges he was facing, he told the Herald: "I understand they're serious charges more than anyone else."
He refused to comment further.
* TALE OF NEGLECT
3 1/2-month-old Sarah Rebekah Woodcock-Haddock was found dead in March 2005.
She died of haemorrhaging caused by a fractured skull.
Her mother, Jaymie Ellen Natasha Haddock, is serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence after being convicted last year of wilful neglect.
Sarah's father, Joshua Woodcock, 23, was arrested after police received new information. He has been charged with murder.
