Partner ‘gullible’ over baby kidnap
An Auckland man has admitted he was ‘‘gullible’’ when his partner pretended she was in labour and came home from hospital with a baby.
After going to Middlemore Hospital and being told that his girlfriend Loni Marsh was not pregnant, Faatiga Joe Manutui still believed her claim that she was in labour, and later picked her and a newborn up from the hospital.
The baby was a five-dayold girl belonging to South African woman Elsje Pretorius. Marsh had snatched the infant from a private room as Pretorius showered.
Marsh later pleaded guilty to kidnapping, and for that and a host of other charges, she was jailed for 18 months.
Manutui appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing yesterday, after earlier pleading guilty to a charge of being a party to kidnapping.
Justice Mark Woolford told the court that despite a number of ‘‘warning signs and inconsistencies’’ in Marsh’s story, Manutui helped to take the baby home and didn’t contact the hospital or police.
According to a summary of facts, Marsh and Manutui had been together for only a month when Marsh began claiming she was pregnant. On September 25 last year she asked Manutui to take her to the hospital to give birth.
They were met at the hospital by a nurse, who told the couple that Marsh was not pregnant and had been told so on earlier occasions. Manutui left the hospital while Marsh was checked, and 20 minutes later she phoned him to say she had given birth.
They left the hospital together with the newborn but were visited in the early hours of the morning by police. The baby was unharmed.
Manutui’s lawyer Nalesoni Tupou told the court his client was deeply remorseful for the offending and had offered his apologies to the Pretorius family. He was in a new relationship.
Manutui was sentenced to three months of community detention and 250 hours of community work.