Murder accused told police different story

Murder accused Troy Taylor lied to police about the hours before Ihaka Stokes’s death because he didn’t want to get the boy’s mother into trouble, a court has heard.

Taylor, the former partner of Ihaka’s mother Mikala Stokes, is on trial in the High Court in Christchurch, charged with murdering and assaulting 14-month-old Ihaka in July 2015. He has pleaded not guilty.

During evidence from neuropathology professor Colin Smith, defence counsel Phil Shamy said his client would testify and planned to change his account of what happened the night the Christchurch toddler died.

Taylor initially told police he woke about 10.40pm on July 3 when he heard ‘‘one loud bang’’. He said he recognised it as the sound of Ihaka falling in his cot and that the child had ‘‘seemed fine’’ when he left him a couple of hours earlier.

Taylor checked on Ihaka and woke his then partner minutes later to say there was ‘‘something wrong’’ with the boy. Ihaka was found unresponsive in his cot. He had blue lips, was struggling to breathe and was rushed to Christchurch Hospital, where he died.

Shamy has indicated the defence case would suggest Ihaka’s injuries were inflicted by Stokes when the mother and son were home alone on the afternoon and evening of the day he died.

Ihaka suffered 59 separate injuries,

"He will say he . . . didn't want to get Mikala into trouble."

including broken shoulder blades, his left forearm and jaw. Serious head injuries, including haemorrhaging and swelling, proved fatal.

United Kingdom-based Smith, who gave evidence via videolink, rejected the suggestion Ihaka suffered the head injuries hours before he died.

‘‘In my opinion the pathology . . . absolutely points towards this child going into cardiac arrest very close to the point at which the injury has been inflicted. There is nothing that could support the suggestion that this was an injury inflicted at some point earlier in the day and this child has deteriorated over a period of time.’’

In some cases, people could suffer ‘‘lucid intervals’’ between incurring a head injury and deteriorating into cardiac arrest, Smith said, but these were more common with brain blood clots rather than haemorrhaging or swelling, which Ihaka suffered.

Young children would also be ‘‘moribund’’ in such cases, clearly unwell and far less lucid than adults, the professor said. A lucid interval was not credible in Ihaka’s case, he said, as he found no nerve damage in the toddler’s brain that indicated deterioration before cardiac arrest.

During cross-examination, Shamy walked Smith through the evidence Taylor planned to give in court: Taylor would testify that when he arrived home about 7pm on July 3, he only briefly checked on Ihaka in his cot.

He checked again about 8.30pm and found Ihaka ‘‘with his eyes half open staring at the ceiling’’.

He was floppy, breathing raspingly and otherwise silent. Taylor did not see any bruising on Ihaka in the dimly-lit room, but he thought something was wrong.

‘‘He will say he thought something had happened, but didn’t want to get Mikala into trouble,’’ Shamy said.

About 90 minutes later, still worried, Taylor would say he checked Ihaka again. He found the boy had rolled onto his front and was lying diagonally in the cot. Ihaka was unresponsive. Taylor raised the alarm.

Shamy asked Smith if Taylor’s latest account fitted his findings.

‘‘The pathology is not compatible with the child having been in a critical clinical state for a period of four to four-anda-half hours,’’ the professor said.

‘‘I would see changes in the microscope for that level of survival.

‘‘What I see down the microscope in this case is a very rapid deterioration. There’s no cellular damage to nerve cells, there’s no damage to the nerve fibres.’’

The defence will submit evidence from its own neuropathology expert.

The trial before Justice Mander has adjourned for the week and will resume on Monday.