No justice for baby Jayden
Leanne Perrin does not accept that no one will be held accountable for the death of her 10-month-old son in Nelson nearly 20 years ago. and report for the Faces of Innocents series.
Leanne Perrin’s memories of her son are held in a faded light blue photo album.
She saw the album in the airport after she came back from hospital, after doctors had turned off her son’s life support.
‘‘I thought ‘yes, this is right for Jayden’.’’
She flips through the few photographs in it.
The photo she treasures most shows Jayden smiling, having eaten his dinner, which is still on his tiny lips. He looks like a healthy boy.
On another page is an ink imprint of his foot. On another, a hand.
Sealed in a plastic bag and taped onto one of the album’s final pages is a wisp of golden hair. Perrin wishes there were more memories.
Jayden would have been 19 this year.
He was 10 months old when, on June 7, 1998, he was flown from Nelson by emergency helicopter to Auckland’s Starship Hospital. His body was limp.
A pathologist would later say that Jayden had suffered blunt force to his head.
It was consistent with a direct, severe blow to his temple that caused his skull to fracture.
The bruising had a pattern. It looked like the impression of a sock, or a shoe.
The pathologist said the blows caused soft tissues in his scalp and forehead to swell, along with massive bleeding in his scalp, massive fracturing of the skull, and severe internal brain damage.