MAORI CHILD’S DEATH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17409, 6 November 1930, Page 4

MAORI CHILD’S DEATH

VIOLENCE ALLEGED FOSTER-MOTHER CHARGED CORONER’S OPEN VERDICT (Per Press Association.) HAWERA. last night. No verdict was returned on the conclusion of the evidence to-day at the inquest concerning the death of Ngawai Hi Hi, a Maori baby girl 16 months of age, at Ketemarae pa on Saturday, October 25, the coroner, Mr. R. S. Page, intimating that his verdict would he postponed until the disposal of criminal proceedings arising from the same circumstances. On the conclusion of the inquest, the baby's foster-mother, Margaret Korchoua, 30, a Maori woman, was charged with having murdered the child at Normanby on October 25. The accused pleaded not guilty through her counsel, Mr. L. A. Taylor. After a repetition before two justices, of the evidence presented at the inquest, she was committed for trial. Detective Meiklcjohn conducted the police proceedings. Nine witnesses, including a daughter 14 years of age, and an eight-year-old son of the accused, gave evidence. It was alleged 1 that the accused, who had adopted the child Maori fashion from its parents with their consent, kept it for 12 months at the pa. living in a whare with three of her own children. On Saturday, October 25, she visited Hawera, returning with Guy Fawkes masks for tho children. The. masks frightened tho baby, which cried, accused striking it on the jaw with her fist when it failed to stop. This was alleged to have occurred about 6.30 in tlie evening. The accused tried unsuccessfully to revive the child with water, and called in three wahines of the pa to assist, but the child died about 3 o’clock 'on Sunday morning.

DOCTORS’ EVIDENCE Drs. R, B. 0. Sinclair and J. Cairey, who performed a post mortem, concurred in the opinion that there were no marks of external violence, the only abnormal finding being within the skull, where around the right cerebal hemisphere there was excessive subdural haemorrhage. They gave the opinion that death was clue to compression of the brain, consequent on such haemorrhage, which could lie caused in a child the ago of deceased either by a blow on the vertex of the skull of by a blow at a point directly opposite. Replying to Mr. Taylor, Dr. Cairey said the haemorrhage might, conceivably have been produced by a violent shaking of the child’s head l>y some one but even then he would have expected the haemorrhage not to have been restricted to the right cerebal hemisphere. Dr. Sinclair, who proceeded to the* pa with Constable Pigeon about 10.30 on Sunday night, when the police were sent for by the natives, said that- when lie saw the body there appeared to be a slight “puffiness’* about the left side of the face. This was not evident at the post, mortem next day.

‘‘Accused was crying when T approached, ’ said. Constable Pidgeon in evidence. “She said, ‘no kai, the child crying. I get angry.’ Then she showed me how she had hit the child with her clenched fist. She then said, ‘no wake. I putwater on.’ ”

Two Maori women who went to the accused’s whare early on Saturday evening when sent for, gave evidence that the child was then in a low condition. The accused told them she had smacked tho child because it would not stop crying. Another wahine, sister of the deceased’s father, said that when she questioned the accused on the Sunday, tho accused replied,'“Yes, I murdered tho child.”

A daughter of the accused, 14 years of age, said her mother was badtempered, and she had seen her smacking tho child on a previous occasion. A son of the accused, eight years of age, was asked to demonstrate what, ho had seen his mother do to the babv on Saturday evening. _ The lad clenched his fist, and struck his cheek and stomach. Ho said lie had seen his mother smack the child previously, but not. often. When slie did so she would say, “You’re not mine, you are Toi’s,” referring to tho child’s mother.