Child killer admits assaulting husband
A woman convicted over the horrific death of her daughter in 1992 has admitted assaulting her husband with a vacuum cleaner.
Tania Gaye Hopping was known as Tania Witika when she was sentenced to 16 years jail for the manslaughter of toddler Delcelia Witika. The high-profile case was one of the worst instances of child abuse in New Zealand.
In the Christchurch District Court yesterday Hopping, 47, pleaded guilty to assaulting her husband using the vacuum cleaner pipe as a weapon.
Judge Michael Crosbie was about to grant her bail for sentencing on December 19, but she then refused to acknowledge the judge and looked away when he tried to confirm her bail conditions. The judge said: ‘‘Every defendant needs to acknowledge to the judge what their bail conditions are.’’
Hopping was held in custody until she was willing to speak to him.
The police said Hopping and her husband were ’’having a heated discussion about their marriage’’ at an address in Christchurch about 11pm on Monday. When he tried to respond to what she was saying, Hopping picked up a vacuum cleaner pipe and hit him on the head with it. He tried to avoid the blow but was struck on the side of the head.
He had a cut needing four stitches, but duty lawyer Andrew McKenzie said the victim did not want the police to be involved.
Hopping was ‘‘quite insistent on wanting to move matters forward today’’, he said. She had a troubled past, but had rehabilitated herself from a difficult position 25 years ago.
Hopping believed that the couple’s issues could be worked through without restorative justice, McKenzie said. Her domestic violence history showed one incident with her husband in 2011.
Judge Crosbie said he was not willing to deal with the case immediately because of her past record. He wanted a full presentence report.
‘‘It would be a sad thing if there was something going on and it wasn’t picked up when the system had the opportunity to pick it up,’’ he said.
When Hopping was recalled to the courtroom after 90 minutes in custody McKenzie said she had ‘‘frozen’’ when the judge spoke to her the first time and did not mean any disrespect.
Judge Crosbie then remanded her on bail to her address in Aranui, with a report to assess her suitability for a home or community detention sentence. A bail condition is she is not allowed to threaten her husband with violence. Hopping acknowledged the details of the judge’s bail conditions and was released.
Two-year-old Delcelia Witika was found lying dead in a pool of blood, faeces, and urine while Hopping and the baby’s stepfather, Eddie Smith, were partying at a friend’s house in South Auckland in 1991. The toddler had been badly burned after being put in a bath of hot water.
Hopping claimed at the trial that she was terrified of Smith and although she had wanted to help Delcelia she had been too frightened. Both Hopping and Smith were found guilty by the jury and jailed for 16 years for manslaughter.
Hopping was imprisoned at Christchurch Women’s Prison, where she had another child, which stayed in the care of her new husband, with regular Child, Youth, and Family supervision.
McKenzie said Hopping had been released from prison and had been taken off the probation system in 2003. She was not subject to recall to prison to serve any more of her sentence. - Fairfax NZ