Mother shares baby daughter’s last days
Warning: This story contains graphic details that may upset readers.
In a baby girl’s final hours, her mother stays up all night beside her in the intensive care unit, searching for answers about what happened to her.
Meanwhile, the baby’s father, Michael John Topp, sleeps in a room next door. When he wakes, he gets himself food and medication and seeks legal advice, all while knowing he caused the child’s admission to hospital.
This has been the evidence of the baby’s mother at Topp’s trial in the High Court at Christchurch. He accepts he caused the girl’s death by shaking her but denies he is guilty of murder, saying he didn’t know that shaking could cause her death.
The 3-month-old, who cannot be named, was rushed to Christchurch Hospital about midday on New Year’s Eve 2021 with serious injuries. Topp had been looking after her that morning.
He took videos and photos of the baby girl smiling and cooing about 11.20am. The images were shown in court yesterday as the girl’s mother gave evidence.
About an hour after the last video was taken, Topp woke the mother and said the baby had been choking and he didn’t know what to do. The woman told the court the baby had gone limp and was struggling to breathe.
She told Topp to call an ambulance, which he did.
The 111 call was played to the jury. Topp could be heard sobbing on the call.
“I was feeding my baby and she started choking and now she’s gone all limp and is making funny noises,” he said.
The baby’s mother could be heard in the background reassuring Topp, telling him the child was going to be OK, and that he did the right thing by waking her.
She told the jury Topp rode in the ambulance with the baby at his request, and she followed in the car behind, “crying the whole way”.
The 3-month-old had to be taken straight in for brain surgery, her mother said. She tried to ask Topp what had happened, but he either wouldn’t answer or said he didn’t know. “He said she was choking, so I thought that’s what it was. I just wanted to know my daughter was OK.”
Both parents were interviewed by police while the baby was in surgery, the mum said. “When I saw her next after that, she was brain dead.”
The child was put on life support to keep her alive so other family members could say goodbye.
“I sat with her the entire night. I couldn’t sleep … I asked the nurse repeatedly what was happening. [Topp] was sleeping on the pull-out couch in the waiting area.”
The next day, the mother stayed with her daughter. Topp came and went, going to get food and medication during the day, and he sought legal advice, she told the jury.
The baby’s life support was turned off on January 2, 2022. She died 10 minutes later.
“I was with her. Mike requested to hold her as she passed, but they said no. They placed her on me.”
Under cross-examination by Topp’s lawyer, Philip Shamy, the mother denied once telling a friend that she gave the baby a “small shake” after becoming frustrated with her. “That conversation absolutely never happened.”
The baby girl 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, some of which happened more than 10 days before she was taken to hospital.
The Crown said Topp subjected the child to repeated physical abuse over time, culminating in a final assault on December 31 that caused her death.
The defence doesn’t dispute that other injuries existed, but said there was no evidence of how they were inflicted.
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, continues.