Man confesses to 1989 baby killing

By TONY STICKLEY

Thirteen years after shaking his infant daughter to death and letting his partner take the blame, Brownie Walter Broughton has found God and confessed to his sins.

In November last year, he went into a police station, admitted it was him and begged to be charged with manslaughter.

Broughton's lawyer, John Gerard, told Justice Robert Chambers in the High Court at Auckland yesterday that his client was a converted Christian.

"No doubt the accused seeks to atone for his sins in the temporal world so that he can later on appear in a better light when he appears for judgment in the afterlife."

Broughton, 34, was yesterday jailed for three years after admitting a charge of manslaughter and an unrelated charge of perjury, which got him off a robbery charge.

In 1989, Broughton's de facto wife at the time, Terri Louise Friesen, 34, admitted the manslaughter of her 7-week-old baby, Chantelle, and was sentenced to six months' supervision.

Ms Friesen says she falsely admitted shaking the baby because she did not think Broughton could handle spending time in jail.

She claimed the police also threatened that if one of them did not own up, her other daughter would be taken into Social Welfare care.

Crown prosecutor Claire Ryan said Ms Friesen had to live with the stigma of people thinking she had killed her baby.

She is seeking a pardon. "I just want my name cleared," Ms Friesen told the Herald.

"I'm relieved that the truth is out there. I'm quite numb, it's pretty freaky."

The mother of seven described Broughton as a violent and evil man, and said she had not been in contact with him for years.

Ms Friesen said that at the time, police told her Broughton would die if he was sent to prison.

"He really looked like the broken one. I was in a state of shock ... They looked at me as the hard one."

Ms Friesen doubted Broughton had found God, but said the three-year prison sentence would give her family some "breathing space".

Mr Gerard said that Broughton had put no pressure on her to tell the police she had shaken the child.

In addition to his confession in Christchurch, Broughton had gone to the New Plymouth police in 1991 and made admissions, but nothing was done.

The judge said he assumed there must have been an argument at Ms Friesen's sentencing hearing that she was suffering from post-natal depression for her to have received only six months' supervision.

Justice Chambers said there was no evidence that Broughton had forced Ms Friesen to take the blame.

When Broughton admitted shaking the baby, he also owned up to perjury relating to an armed robbery he was involved in. In 1993, he was convicted and jailed for 5 1/2 years for robbing the publican of the Breakwater Hotel in New Plymouth.

At his retrial, Broughton said he had lent his car to someone on the night of the robbery and had been threatened that his family would be harmed if he disclosed that person's name. He produced a threatening letter allegedly written by the person who borrowed his car.

The jury acquitted him.

Justice Chambers said that Broughton's confessions to the manslaughter and the perjury were extraordinary and came from what Broughton said was a renewed faith in God.

After taking into account the 19 months Broughton had spent in custody on the robbery charge, the judge considered the two offences together warranted nine years' jail.

But after taking into account Broughton's remorse, his guilty pleas and the fact that the offences would not have come to light but for his confessions, the judge gave a discount of six years.

He said it was startling that Broughton had confessed to the New Plymouth police in 1991 but nothing had been done about it.

While that might have salved the conscience of even honourable people, Broughton did not let the matter rest there, but had confessed a second time.

"Indeed on that occasion you have asked to be charged with causing the death of Chantelle - these are remarkable circumstances."

- Additional reporting: Rebecca Walsh