MAORI CHARGED WITH NEGLECT CAUSING DEATH OF YOUNG SON

Wanganui Chronicle, 26 June 1948, Page 5

MAORI CHARGED WITH NEGLECT CAUSING DEATH OF YOUNG SON

(P.A.) Whangarei, June 25 Charged in the Kaikohe Court today with neglecting his infant son and causing his death, Wi Parata, a Maori, was committed for trial • to the Supreme Court. Mildred Shaw, formerly district nurse at Hokianga. now of Dunedin, said she saw the child before Christmas. when it was running a high temperature. She left tablets with the mother and arranged for a message to be given to ihe father to ring her, hut he did not do so admitting that he had forgotten to ring. After the child's death she saw the emaciated body and considered there was definitely malnutrition over a long period. Home conditions were shocking, but she did not think she had ever seen such parental neglect of a family. Whenever she visited the home, which was a nikau whare, there was little or no food in it. Dr. Kemble Welch, of the Rawene Hospital, said that death was primarily due to broncho pneumonia, but starvation had contributed to the death. In a statement to the police, accused said he told his wife not to give the child the tablets ordered by the disrict nurse, as they were not proper medicine lor his son.