Couple Remanded On Neglect Charge

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31922, 25 February 1969, Page 28

Couple Remanded On Neglect Charge

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, February 24. A man and his wife were remanded until March 3 when they appeared in the Otahuhu Magistrate’s Court today charged with wilfully neglecting five children under the age of 16 years in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering.

Tangimetua Iti Tangimetua, aged 38, a freezing worker, and Rachael Tangimetua. aged 27, a housewife, both of Otahuhu, pleaded guilty. Mr D. I. N. McLean, S.M., also called for a probation officer’s report on the man and a child welfare report on the five children. He allowed bail for both the accused.

and the smell overpowering, Mr Dawn said.

At about 10 p.m. the children w'ere taken to a grandparent’s home. When interviewed the accused said they had been to a “housie” function and that they often left the children alone.

They told the police all their money was spent in the hotel and on “housie,” Mr Dawn said.

Senior-Sergeant G. P. Dawn said that at 9.10 p.m. on January 21 the police went to an Otahuhu house and found five children, whose ages ranged from two years two months to six years eight months, sitting in a single bed under a single blanket. The children were in a filthy condition. They complained of being very hungry and cold and could not state where their parents were. The children were dressed in clothing no better than rags and their bodies were covered with scars.

The male accused said he received about $36 a week.

The only food in the house was a pot of cabbage on the stove, a tin of baking powder in a cupboard, a few onions in a drawer and flour spilt on the floor. The house itself was filthy