Warning: This story deals with child abuse and contains distressing content
The mother of Malachi Subecz, murdered by a caregiver, has broken down in tears in court while recalling her final conversation with her son.
Jasmine Cotter appeared before a Coroner’s Court in Auckland today on the first day of an inquest into his death.
Malachi, 5, died from severe head injuries in Starship Hospital on November 12, 2021.
His caregiver, Michaela Barriball, was sentenced to life in prison in June 2022 for his murder.
Barriball was a friend of Cotter and was looking after Malachi in Tauranga while Cotter was in prison for importing methamphetamine.
Malachi’s biological family on the Kāpiti Coast was attempting to get guardianship of him at the time due to concerns about his care arrangements.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his death, Cotter told the court today that if she sent Malachi to live with his biological family, she feared she would never see him again. If he lived in Tauranga he could also visit her in prison.
She said that in hindsight, Malachi was trying to tell her in phone calls to prison that he was being abused by Barriball. He had complained of having a sore head and “mamaes [pains]” but she was reassured by Barriball’s assurance that he had fallen over at daycare.
However, she became concerned in her final phone call with Malachi.
“In the [final] part of the phone call, Malachi sounded very, very, very sad,” she said, crying.
“He said, ‘Mum, I’m a strong boy aren’t I?’ And I told him I’d see him when I get out.
“I had a feeling that something was wrong because he would only say those types of things when he was sad.”
Cotter later agreed under questioning that Barriball could be persuasive and impressive when assuring teachers and others that Malachi was happy and healthy. “She could win an Oscar,” she said.
She identified what she saw as failures in Malachi’s case. She asked why other people who knew of her son’s abuse were not charged despite witnessing it.
After Oranga Tamariki received a report of concern about Malachi’s care, she asked them to pay a visit to Barriball’s property in Te Puna and report back.
Oranga Tamariki said they had no concerns and Cotter gave her approval to close the report. She later found out they had not visited the property, she said.
“I thought that no news was good news but now I know they didn’t do their job properly.”
The failure by Malachi’s daycare to report his injuries “broke my soul”, she said. She asked whether mandatory reporting of child abuse would have made a difference.
Listing several other failures by child protection authorities, she said: “I understand that Malachi’s case is going to be used to bring changes. But nothing has changed. If anything, he’s become another statistic”.
Earlier, Cotter said she wanted to give a more detailed picture of her son.
“He was the type of person ... he could pick up when something was wrong and he was that comforting person when you were feeling down.
“There was just a lot more to him than his death ... He was just a very, very, very special kid to me and to all those who knew and loved him.”
Detective Inspector Craig Rawlinson, who led the investigation into Malachi’s death, told the court today that the child’s biological family immediately raised concerns with police and Oranga Tamariki about his care arrangements after his mother was jailed in June 2021.
However, a report of concern to Oranga Tamariki was not thoroughly investigated.
Rawlinson said Barriball had a number of motivations for having guardianship of Malachi, including welfare payments and state-supplied accommodation.
She was in a relationship with an overstayer from India and believed that having a dependent child would help with his residency application.
It also gave her leverage over Cotter, who was a witness in an ongoing criminal prosecution involving one of Barriball’s family members.
Rawlinson spoke in detail about Barriball’s abuse of Malachi.
Children who lived at the same address told police about daily assaults including slapping and pushing him into walls.
When he began soiling himself, Barriball stripped him down and locked him in a car outside the cabin where they lived. She also deprived him of food and held his head underwater in the bath.
There were several possible opportunities for people to intervene. Malachi was taken for a visiting day at Te Puna School, where a teacher aide noticed a bruise on his forehead but did not report it to Oranga Tamariki.
On his first day at Abbey’s Place Childcare Centre in Tauranga, staff observed multiple injuries on his face and head and were concerned enough to take photographs.
Barriball told them he had fallen off his bike, but Malachi denied this when asked by staff. Oranga Tamariki were not notified.
The daycare centre was later ordered to close by the Ministry of Education.
Rawlinson noted he had similar injuries to those observed by daycare staff when he died.
Despite further abuse, including badly burning Malachi’s stomach in the shower, Barriball never took him to a doctor. She concealed his injuries from others, including Cotter, who she declined to have video calls with.
At the same time, she was under growing pressure. Her welfare payments were cancelled after she was found to be in a de facto relationship.
A guardianship hearing with Malachi’s family was imminent. And she had been rejected by multiple landlords while trying to find a new place to live.
On November 1, 2021, she inflicted multiple blunt force injuries on Malachi.
An ambulance was called and she told officers that he had fallen while getting ready for school. He had multiple abrasions, bruises, a swollen left eye, blood around his nostrils, a burn on his stomach, and a dilated eye.
He was airlifted to Auckland’s Starship hospital, where his life support was switched off on November 12.
Under questioning from Coroner Janet Anderson, Rawlinson said he generally supported making it a criminal offence for a person not to report child abuse they had witnessed.
The court earlier heard that a number of people in Malachi’s case showed a “wilful blindness” to his abuse.
That included Barriball’s partner, who saw the bruising on his body and was aware of Barriball’s concerns that she might kill him but did not report the abuse or insist on medical treatment.
The coronial inquiry is focusing on the steps taken to protect Malachi and whether child protection changes made by government agencies in response to the tragedy had reduced the likelihood of further deaths.
It will specifically consider whether mandatory reporting of child abuse by schools and daycares might be effective. This was one of the main recommendations of an inquiry into Malachi’s death but has not been adopted by successive Governments.
Malachi’s death was a national scandal, prompting a major inquiry by Dame Karen Poutasi which uncovered a “long list of fatal errors” and concluded that it could have been prevented if Oranga Tamariki had acted appropriately.
“Critical gaps” were also found at other government agencies which interacted with the family and changes were recommended to the education, health and welfare sectors.
A separate investigation by the Chief Ombudsman found that Oranga Tamariki acted against its own policies and did not appear to fulfil the “bare minimum” of the process required to ensure Malachi’s safety.
The investigation came after a complaint by Malachi’s cousin, who had made a report of concern to Oranga Tamariki. The Chief Ombudsman found Oranga Tamariki acted wrongly and unreasonably in response to this complaint.
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