Rape link in child's death 'no excuse'

A Hamilton woman who bashed her daughter to death should not have been given a reduced sentence just because the child was a product of rape, the Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

Six-year-old Mereana Te Mana Motuhake Edmonds died in May last year after being punched, slapped and kicked by her mother, Belinda Edmonds.

The child was brought up by her grandmother in Hawkes Bay and spent only six months living with her mother in Hamilton.

But in that time she was subjected to constant abuse, suffering broken bones and numerous bruises.

As punishment for wetting her bed the little girl was locked in an outhouse for the night and once was slammed backwards into a hard object so forcefully her brain rebounded off the front of her skull.

In the High Court at Hamilton two months ago, Belinda Edmonds was jailed for five years for manslaughter.

Her partner, Dorothy Tipene, was jailed for 18 months for cruelty to a child. The couple had earlier pleaded guilty to the charges.

In the Court of Appeal at Auckland yesterday, crown counsel John Pike told Justices Peter Blanchard, Anthony Ellis and Noel Anderson that the personal circumstances of Edmonds should have been put aside at sentencing.

The rape "ought not to have been a factor at all."

"The child of rape is less protected in criminal law against death at the hands of its mother? That can't be right," he said.

In normal circumstances the names of rape victims are suppressed, but at Edmonds' sentencing the judge ruled that her name could be used because a charge of rape was never laid.

Yesterday, Mr Pike said Mereana's death was "one of the worst of our child killings" in a long line of tragic deaths at the hands of parents and caregivers.

Mereana had lived in terror for the last six months of her life and was systematically beaten.

"The extreme cruelty she suffered until she died cannot possibly be reflected by five years' imprisonment."

Mr Pike also told the court that the crown prosecutor's advice to the judge at sentencing regarding an appropriate sentence for Edmonds was "an embarrassing mistake."

The prosecutor had suggested that eight years' imprisonment would be a starting point.

"That should never have been said," Mr Pike told the Court of Appeal.

Edmonds' defence lawyer, Herman Roose, told the court that the sentencing judge had been familiar with the case from the start. As a result, the sentence was "not manifestly inadequate."

Mr Roose also said Edmonds was suffering the "ongoing agony of the event having occurred at all" and had the added pressure of public scrutiny through television coverage of the case.

"To have your entire life stripped back for the media to analyse has an overtone of denunciation."

Justice Blanchard, the presiding Appeal Court judge, said he did not see the media coverage as a factor.

The decision has been reserved.