Auckland baby death: Trial begins for murder accused Tipene Te Ahuru

Tipene Te Ahuru appears in the Auckland High Court on May 6, 2024, the first day of his murder trial. He is accused of killing a baby boy on September 18, 2022. Photo / Jason Oxenham

An agitated and impatient Auckland father fatally wounded his infant son while his partner was out doing the laundry, a jury has been told.

Tipene Te Ahuru, 32, is standing trial at the Auckland High Court charged with murdering 3-month-old Amaziah Te Ahuru nearly two years ago.

His trial before Justice Jane Anderson and a jury began today, when prosecutor Luke Radich opened the Crown’s case.

The baby’s mother then gave evidence and described the moment she held her infant son and realised the gravity of the situation when she felt how cold he was.

Te Ahuru has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Defence lawyer Daniel Taumihau, representing Te Ahuru alongside Kelly-Ann Stoikoff, told the jury the issue they would need to consider is whether he had the intention and foresight to cause his son’s death.

“Or was this all just an accident?” Taumihau said.

Te Ahuru and Amaziah’s mother Raurangi Richards, his then-partner, were at home in their unit in Reagan Rd between Papatoetoe and the Manukau town centre on September 18, 2022.

“This trial is about what happened in that half an hour or so when Mr Te Ahuru, agitated and impatient, was alone with Amaziah,” Radich said to the jury.

Richards needed to leave the unit to do some washing at a public laundromat just down the road.

But Radich said she wasn’t completely relaxed about leaving their home even for a short time.

Amaziah had been a bit unsettled and Te Ahuru was agitated, Radich said.

The mood in the Papatoetoe unit was tense.

“Nonetheless, the laundry needed to be done.”

Tipene Te Ahuru appears in the Auckland High Court today, the first day of his murder trial. He is accused of murdering his baby boy on September 18, 2022.

Within only a few minutes, Te Ahuru was trying to call his partner.

She missed six calls in a short space of time as she loaded large quantities of laundry into several machines, Radich said.

Richards eventually tried to call him back.

He did not pick up, so she went back to her car and rushed home, leaving her washing in the machines and running a red light.

When the couple eventually connected on the phone, Te Ahuru said something about their boy not being fully conscious or breathing, Radich said.

She told him to get off the phone and call an ambulance.

But when she got home he had not phoned 111, the prosecutor said.

“She immediately realised something was drastically wrong with her son.”

Radich played a recorded phone call to the jury of Richards calling 111.

“My baby’s barely breathing,” she told the operator.

The boy was taking breaths only every 20 seconds or so and did not appear conscious, she said.

“Oh my God … tell me he’s not going to die,” she is heard saying.

The operator talked her through performing CPR before paramedics arrived and took over, eventually managing to restore the child’s breathing.

Te Ahuru did not shed much light to the paramedics or his partner on what had happened.

“Seemingly it was a mystery,” Radich said.

“Except that it wasn’t.”

The Crown case is that Te Ahuru shook his son and struck him against objects.

“It was an assault, and it was fatal, and it was murder.”

Radich said the prosecution case is not that Te Ahuru planned the assault.

But he had murderous intent because he either intentionally murdered his son or injured him knowing death could result, Radich said.

While paramedics had managed to restore Amaziah’s breathing, the damage was done, Radich said.

The baby, who had been alive barely 100 days, had suffered a head injury causing a brain bleed, he said. He was placed on life support but died 11 days later.

“Brain bleeds are serious things.

“Brain damage is always a risk when this happens. Bit by bit, brain cells begin to die.”

The brain damage was not Amaziah’s only injury, Radich said.

He also had bleeding around his spinal cord, retinal haemorrhaging - bleeding from the eyes - abdominal trauma and a broken arm, the prosecutor said.

After his son was taken first to Middlemore then to Starship hospital, Te Ahuru told varying stories about what happened, Radich said.

He first said nothing happened, then said he dropped his son and later claimed to have shaken him.

The Crown case was none of those descriptions are accurate, Radich said.

What is not in doubt is who killed Amaziah, he said.

“It’s not a whodunit.”

Mum describes moment she realised something was wrong

Richards, 23, described Amaziah as an “absolute surprise” when she gave evidence and said he had arrived about five weeks early.

They had spent weeks in hospital before returning home, she said.

On September 18, her baby seemed upset and would not stay asleep, as the young couple readied the house for a visit from family.

“No matter how much we tried to settle him he just wouldn’t settle,” she said.

“It was getting quite frustrating.”

Richards said she felt tired, impatient and hōhā that day.

When she left to do the laundry, her baby had none of the injuries she would find when she returned.

Under questioning from Radich, Richards described her shock in the moment she heard her then partner tell her the baby wasn’t breathing properly while she was driving.

“As soon as I heard what he had to say, that’s when I ran the light,” she said.

“I was confused as to why he was on the phone to me and not the ambulance.”

Upon arriving home, she left the car running outside and rushed in to find Te Ahuru holding their child.

She described the baby as appearing exhausted.

“When I got over to him I could see that he was more than exhausted,” she said.

“When I grabbed him he was freezing cold.”

Paramedics arrived and Amaziah was taken first to Middlemore and then to Starship Hospital, where he remained for a little under two weeks on life support before his death.

After the baby was taken to intensive care at Starship, Richards said Te Ahuru told her he had dropped their baby.

“We didn’t know who to tell,” she said.

They then arranged a meeting with a social worker with whom they had been working.

The trial continues.

George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.