Moko case replays Nia’s pain

The coroner in the Moko Rangitoheriri abuse case has used the Labour Party campaign slogan ‘‘let’s do this’’ to call for a monitoring system he says could have prevented the child’s horrific death.

The coroner’s report, which dubbed the phrase a ‘‘colloquialism’’, supported a recommendation from the children’s commissioner to build a world leading care and protection system.

Coroner Wallace Bain, who presided over both the Nia Glassie and Moko Rangitoheriri inquests, found in his report released yesterday that had a recommendation from the 2011 Glassie inquest been taken up, Moko would still be alive today.

Bain’s main recommendation is that children be monitored from birth to 5 years old.

Bain also made four other recommendations based on those of former head of Women’s Refuge Merepeka Raukawa-Tait and Judge Andrew Becroft, the Children’s Commissioner.

Three-year-old Moko died in one of the worst cases of child abuse in New Zealand history.

His killers, David Haerewa and Tania Shailer, were sentenced to 17 years in jail for beating Moko to death in 2015.

In his report, Bain said he was horrified at the way in which Moko was killed.

‘‘It is 10 years on from Nia’s horrific death on August 3, 2007. This court has had to go through this again. But the horrific circumstances surrounding Nia’s death have been surpassed beyond belief with the violence perpetrated on Moko.

‘‘The High Court concluded that the extremity of the violence, the injuries, the cruelty, the callousness, the multiple acts of violence, Moko’s extreme vulnerability and the breach of trust involved in the offending, were all at the highest levels of seriousness ... Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, we cannot allow this child abuse to continue ...

‘‘As the colloquialism Let’s do this.’’

In his findings, Bain looked at the recommendations made in the Glassie case and whether they had been implemented.

They included: an 0800 number be made available to report child abuse anonymously; harsher pen- says: alties for witnesses of child abuse who do not call authorities immediately; compulsory registration of all children at birth up to 5 years old; compulsory state intervention and monitoring of children in single-parent families who are known to Child, Youth and Family, working fulltime or receiving the DPB, or have a history of domestic violence in the home; and legislation to ensure compulsory reporting by schools and childcare facilities of absences, risks, health and abuse concerns.

Bain found most of the recommendations had been fully or partially implemented, with the exception of consistent monitoring.

The original recommendation, which is now the primary recommendation in the Moko findings, suggested all children from birth be compulsorily registered with government agencies and health providers and other voluntary organisations and that they be compulsorily monitored through to, and including, the age of 5.

It also advised state intervention and monitoring oversight of the care of children when they come from a single parent family, a single parent family which had previously come to the attention of CYFS in respect to another child, a single parent working fulltime and places care of children with others, single parent on the domestic purposes benefit, and where there has been domestic or child violence issues.

Bain believes that had this been implemented, Moko would be alive.

‘‘Had that recommendation been in place, and for example midwives and Plunket were empowered to check and enter homes (subject to safety considerations) and properly funded to do so, Nia Glassie and Moko would probably still be alive today,’’ the findings state.

‘‘The court asks one simple question: if there is no record of the existence of a child under 5, then how can all children under 5 be properly checked to be safe in their environments?’’