Council to improve relations with east
The Christchurch City Council plans to improve its relationship with residents in the east by spending $130,000 employing two people and making “quick-win interventions”.
The plan was unanimously approved at a council meeting yesterday, despite mayor Phil Mauger saying he initially had some reservations about the effectiveness of the scheme.
Late last year, the council was heavily criticised in an independent report over its handling of the aftermath of the Bromley wastewater treatment plant fire in late 2021, which took out 60% of its treatment capacity.
The report said the council was “too slow” to recognise that the smell was a major issue. The stench from the plant has tormented residents, causing nausea, headaches, respiratory illness, sleepless nights and mental health impacts.
The council formally apologised over its handling of the community response last year, and developed an improvement plan, which put repairing its relationship with the community at the top.
Yesterday, the council decided to take $130,000 from its Capital Endowment Fund. The money would be used to employ a community development adviser parttime for 18 months, at a cost of $75,000, and to engage an independent contractor for 300 hours at $90 an hour, totalling close to $30,000.
The council would also spend between $5000 and $25,000 on five “quick-win interventions”.
Council head of community support and partnerships John Filsell said an intervention could be as simple as making improvements to a park, installing rubbish bins, and prioritising small roading and footpath repairs. It could also be a small event to bring the community together or to establish a residents’ association.
The new community development adviser would work with the Waitai Coastal Burwood Linwood Community Board, and establish an internal team across all council units to feed information, advice and requests from the community back to the council, Filsell said.
The independent facilitator would work with the community to understand how the council could better engage and build trust. They would advise the council on how to engage with these communities.
While the initial funding was for a set time frame, Filsell said the project to build trust in the east would be ongoing indefinitely.
Mauger said he was not initially a fan of spending more money to ask people what was wrong when the council should be spending the money doing something. “All these people want to see is some of their roads fixed.” Despite, his concerns, he voted for the project along with his councillor colleagues.
Councillor Mark Peters said it was time to start showing the east some love and start mending relationships and rebuild trust.
Bromley resident Vickie Walker, whose health has been affected by the stench, said in February if the council looked after the streets a little better, it would get more respect. She said she would love to see picnic tables at Bromley Park and Cypress Gardens and some exercise equipment, which features in other parks across the city, installed.
Warning: This story contains graphic details that may upset readers.
A father who killed his 3-month-old child says he is guilty of manslaughter by shaking her, but denies murder.
Michael John Topp’s baby daughter was rushed to Christchurch Hospital shortly before midday on New Year’s Eve 2021 with serious injuries, but died two days later.
She died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. An autopsy found she had also suffered 31 fractures to both legs and her ribs.
Topp, 36, appeared for the first day of his jury trial in the High Court at Christchurch yesterday. The baby’s mother told the jury the child would often cry inconsolably without her knowing why, and a recording of one such time was played in court.
Topp was looking after his daughter at home in Wainoni on the morning of December 31, while her mother slept after being up most of the night with the baby. He took a photo of her sleeping peacefully and sent it to his own mother, followed by a video showing her awake, alert and happy about 11.20am.
Nearly an hour later, Topp searched “what to do when baby choked” on his phone, Crown prosecutor Courtney Martyn said.
He rushed into the mother’s room, and an ambulance was called. Paramedics found the child limp and struggling to breathe. Topp told them the baby began choking while he was feeding her formula.
The baby died from a catastrophic brain injury two days later.
The autopsy also found that some of the baby’s injuries, including fractures to her ribs and legs, had occurred more than 10 days before she was taken to hospital.
“Over her short life, she was subjected to repeated physical abuse and was eventually murdered, all at the hands, the Crown says, of Mr Topp,” Martyn said.
Topp and the baby’s mother met in September 2020. He had two children from a previous relationship. Having a baby was all his new partner dreamed of, Martyn told the jury – and, much to her delight, she became pregnant in February 2021.
Topp appeared happy with the news. But after a while, he went from a positive, happy-go-lucky person to having a negative, often stressed mindset. After the baby was born, his mental health began to spiral, and reached its worst in December, Martyn said.
“His patience for things was getting shorter, and he became frustrated and annoyed by everything.”
The mother noticed that their baby would cry uncontrollably, sometimes for hours on end. She didn’t know why, but initially put it down to colic. The baby became particularly distressed when her legs were moved and she lay on her back.
On December 30, the baby was taken to an after-hours surgery after a night of incessant crying and no feeding or sleeping. No scans were done. She was assessed as being dehydrated, and sent home.
The same thing happened that night, and the mother was up all night with the child on the couch. The next morning, when Topp woke, she handed the baby over to him and went to bed shortly after 9.30am, Martyn said.
Some time after 12pm, Topp came into the room, upset with the baby. He said she had gone limp and he didn’t know what to do. An ambulance was called.
When she arrived at the hospital, the baby’s CT scans showed she had a severe brain injury, and doctors concluded that she would not survive. Her life support was turned off on January 2, 2022.
Police were notified. The court heard that Topp told detectives the same story he told paramedics – that she began choking while he was feeding her formula.
However, Martyn said, the medical evidence was clear that “not only did he kill her, but that he subjected her to repeated instances of physical abuse over her short life”.
Topp subjected his child to a final assault on December 31, which he knew could risk her death, making him guilty of murder, Martyn said.
Topp’s lawyer, Sarah
Saunderson-Warner, said her client accepted that he killed his daughter by shaking her, but denied it was murder.
“The baby’s death is a tragedy that affects everyone who loved her. But that also goes to Mr Topp – he loved her, too.”
He was excited when his partner fell pregnant, and that excitement continued following the birth. But things became hard, Saunderson-Warner said.
“Mr Topp was struggling. He was ill-equipped. Despite his love for the baby, he wasn’t up to the job. You’ll hear he was tired, stressed, and couldn’t go on. And he shook the baby that he loved.
“But the defence is that he isn’t a murderer.”
It wasn’t disputed that the baby also suffered other injuries, but there would be no evidence of how they happened, Topp’s lawyer told the jury.
Pretty soon after shaking his child, Topp lied when he said she had choked, Saunderson-Warner said. “Being a liar is very different to being a murderer.”
He did not know that shaking the baby would kill her, the defence lawyer told the jury.
In her evidence, the baby’s mother described times when the child would cry uncontrollably.
On one occasion, she called Plunket. The call was played in court.
The baby could be heard screaming loudly in the background. Her mother said it had been nearly an hour, and no matter what she did, the baby couldn’t be settled.
The baby would cry when Topp would interact with her or try to pick her up when she was otherwise content, the mother told the court.
Topp faces charges of murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to injure.
The trial, which is set down for three weeks in front of Justice Anne Hinton, continues.