Dad admits killing baby son

Father given almost five years’ jail for violent shaking causing 11-week-old boy’s death

An Invercargill father has been jailed for nearly five years for violently shaking and killing his baby boy after denying his guilt for more than two years.

Shamrock Fayne Mitchell, 44, was sentenced to four years and nine months’ prison yesterday at the High Court at Invercargill for the manslaughter of his 11-week-old son, Honour Ashworth.

Mitchell was initially charged with murder, before he later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

However, his admission came after two years of attempting to conceal the truth of his son’s death and denying medical evidence which suggested Honour had suffered a violent death.

The boy’s mother, Jenna Ashworth, said in a victim impact statement that her son’s death has “ripped her soul to pieces”.

On January 13, 2014, Ashworth left for work and Mitchell was left in the care of their son.

“A friend of yours dropped in to see you for about 10 minutes. Honour was awake, on the couch and happy,” sentencing judge Justice Nicholas Davidson said.

“He was a happy, healthy boy who was not suffering from any sickness, other than a slight cough.”

Later in the night, at 7.23pm, Mitchell phoned 111.

“You said Honour must have fallen off the couch and that he was not breathing,” Davidson said.

Paramedics rushed Honour to Southland Hospital after he was found unresponsive.

A CT scan later revealed subdural haemorrhaging to his brain, and an ophthalmologist found that he had severe retinal haemorrhaging in both eyes, the court heard.

Honour, his mother and Mitchell were flown to Starship Hospital in Auckland during the early hours of January 14. But the infant died that night.

A post mortem concluded that the direct cause of death was ischemic encephalopathy.

A forensic pathologist said that a fall from a low couch, as Mitchell had explained to police, was unlikely to account for the degree of trauma.

The pathologist sought a second opinion, which also concluded that abusive head trauma was the most likely cause of Honour’s death.

“For a long time no charge was laid. Suspicion by the police was not proof. You were the only person with knowledge of the facts,” Davidson told Mitchell.

When police formally interviewed Mitchell on January 24, 2016, he denied violently shaking his son.

However, he said after waking to Honour screaming he noticed his son had gone limp and “stuff [was] coming out of his nose and mouth, but it was not milk”.

“You said that you lifted him to your shoulder and gave him a bit of a shake. You insisted that the shake would not have hurt him. You said you were trying to get stuff out of his mouth,” Justice Davidson said.

Mitchell was interviewed for a second time by police on July 20, 2016. And when confronted with overwhelming medical evidence finally admitted to shaking his son.

He told police he had attempted to feed Honour milk in an effort to calm him, but when it failed he held his baby under his arms and he shook him.

“That was when Honour’s head went limp,” Davidson said. “This was the first time you admitted shaking him in this way, two years after he died.”

When reading a victim impact statement from Ashworth, Davidson said, she “had everything to live for as a hard-working mother of two beautiful children”.

“She has been stopped in her tracks by grief. The discovery of how Honour died, in her words, ‘ripped her soul to pieces’.”

The boy’s grandmother also described her pain after initially believing Mitchell’s story.

“She feels the weight of guilt that she did not protect her family from you,” Davidson said.

Mitchell will serve two years and six months in prison before he is eligible for parole.