Abuse accused awaits verdict

AUCKLAND: A mother on trial accused of drugging her daughter and feeding her son a battery must now wait for a jury to reach its verdict.

The woman, whose name is suppressed, is standing trial in the High Court at Auckland, facing eight charges of ill treatment or neglect of a child.

The abuse spanned close to five years, as the mother took her children for more than 100 unnecessary medical checkups beginning from 2011, prosecutor Mark Harborow said.

He said the woman seemed to enjoy the attention people gave her when she had sick children and so began taking her daughter for checkups, claiming the girl had seizures and ataxia, where a person loses control of their limbs.

The woman even gave her daughter an overdose of medicine to make it look like she had ataxia, he said.

She later twice suffocated her infant son and took video of him struggling to breath, before later feeding him a small button electronics battery, Mr Harborow said. — NZN