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Police struggling to prove child abuse cases

Author
Anna Cross, Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Sat, 5 Sep 2015, 8:04AM

Police struggling to prove child abuse cases

Author
Anna Cross, Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Sat, 5 Sep 2015, 8:04AM

A child advocacy group claims police are often stuck when it comes to proving child abuse cases.

An Auckland couple has been sent to jail for neglecting their twin babies - one baby had 26 fractures, while the other had 11.

Despite the severe injuries, the defendants - aged in their 30s - faced only two counts of child neglect rather than violence charges because police could not prove who caused the harm.

Child Matters chief executive Anthea Simcock believes that's always a technical difficulty.

"They will probably have their suspicions and their beliefs but legally, being able to say who did what, they have their hands tied, and that's just how our law works," Simcock said.

But she also insists that it wouldn't have been something nobody else knew about.

"Somebody else must have known. Somebody must have seen some of the signs. Somebody would have seen some of the behaviour of the person who was doing it."

Justice Patricia Courtney granted them name suppression but stressed the purpose was to protect the children rather than their parents.

"There were many, many separate injuries which means the children would have been in pain for days on end," she said.

"It's not credible to think the level of pain and suffering could have gone unnoticed by two adults."

The violent acts likely took place over a two-week period and resulted in 26 fractures to one child - including a fractured skull - and 11 to the other..

The kids were about 10-weeks-old at the time and had been born prematurely.

 

 

 

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