Child’s hand burnt with lighter — police

Press, 1 June 1984, Page 12

Child’s hand burnt with lighter — police

PA Wellington A man had said he moved the flame of a cigarette lighter backwards and forwards under a child’s hand while holding him by the wrist, a detective constable has told the District Court in Wellington. Detective Constable D. W. Allan said the man had said the child, aged four, was screaming during the incident. Judge Bathgate convicted the man, aged 30, on a charge that having control of a child, he wilfully illtreated him in a manner likely to cause actual bodily harm. He dismissed an alternative charge of assaulting the child.

The defendant had denied both charges. Judge Bathgate remanded him to June 20 for a probation report and suppressed publication of his name in the meantime. In evidence, the boy’s mother said she had been living with the defendant on December 8, 1983. That night she was watching television with her three children when the defendant arrived at 8.30 p.m. “He wasn’t all that drunk,” the witness said. She said the defendant asked her if her son had been playing up but she had told him that he had not. The defendant had sat on the end of the child’s bed and started talking with him, then held a lighter under the child’s hand.

“I was too scared to watch. I walked out,” the witness said. She said the lighter was ignited and the child was screaming. Asked by Sergeant J. R. McDonough how long the lighter was going, the witness said for a few seconds. Her son’s hand was “one big blister.” Detective Constable Allan said that on December 18, 1983, at the Wellington Central Police Station, he had asked the defendant if he would mind emptying his pockets. Among the items in his pocket was a cigarette lighter. “I asked the defendant if that was the lighter that was used to cause the injuries,”- witness said. “He told me that it was.” A psychotherapist called by the defence, Peter John Reid, said he considered that at the time in question the defendant was in a dissociated state. Asked by defence counsel, Miss Helen Cull,’ to explain, Mr Reid said it was a massive conflict which developed between the impulses, instincts, unconscious forces, and consciousness.