Tortured victim feared to be witch

A couple found guilty of forcing a girl to take very cold baths for long periods have appealed against their convictions.

The victim, now 18, said that when she was a child and in her early teens, she was made to take cold baths, with ice added, for so long that when she got out she could not walk properly or move her fingers.

She was stopped from putting on warm clothes afterwards.

The man was alleged to have cut off her hair, burnt her clothes, cut up her mattress so she had to sleep on the floor, and hit and slapped her.

The woman was accused of being a party to his acts of ill treatment, particularly forcing her to take the cold baths.

She was alleged to have been directly involved in tying up the girl with an electric cord. Suppression orders protect the identity of the couple and the girl.

It was suggested the man believed the girl was a witch and was cursed.

Five judges in the Supreme Court heard yesterday that the trial in Auckland for the pair may have gone wrong because the jury heard ‘‘background’’ evidence of events when the mother and daughter lived in Palmerston North, and the man sometimes visited.

Later they moved to Auckland and lived with the man.

The main point of the appeal was whether a miscarriage of justice occurred at the trial when the jury heard evidence of events that happened in Palmerston North after the 2007 date when the charges began, but before the law changed in 2012 around the time the mother and daughter moved to Auckland. The period of the charges continued until 2014.

Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias said the question for the appeal was whether the couple were convicted on a wrong basis.

The man’s lawyer, Rodney Hooker, said the evidence had focused as much on the Palmerston North events as it did on the Auckland ones.

The jury should have been told that a different standard applied to the acts in Palmerston North, when the man said he did not have charge of the girl.

The woman’s lawyer, Jonathan Krebs, said she had been convicted on a wrong basis so that for the first five years covered in the charge the mental element that had to be proved was different, but no-one told the jury that.

Crown lawyer Mark Lillico conceded mistakes were made, but he said that none of the acts happened only in Palmerston North, so the outcome would not have been affected. But another of the judges, Justice Susan Glazebrook, said if the prosecutor did not appreciate what the difference should have been, how could the jury know?

The man was sentenced to two years and three months’ jail, and the woman to one year and nine months’ jail, on charges of illtreating the girl and assaulting her.

The Supreme Court reserved its decision.