Child killer’s ‘ultimate betrayal’
A Turangi father who murdered his ‘‘defenceless’’ baby will spend at least 17 years in jail.
Donovan Michael Duff, 42, was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum parole period of
17 years, at the High Court in Rotorua yesterday on one charge of murder relating to the death of his nine-month-old daughter Maija Puhi-Duff in Turangi in
2016.
He had always maintained his innocence but, after hour of deliberations, a jury delivered a unanimous guilty verdict at his trial in June. Sentencing Duff, Justice Mathew Downs described the killing as ‘‘the ultimate betrayal of trust’’.
‘‘You murdered a defenceless infant. That you had been a caring father previously does not detract from the enormity of what you did.’’ He also outlined Duff’s extensive criminal history, including a hammer attack on a former partner he described as particularly brutal.
Downs also paid tribute to Puhi-Duff’s grandparents who were in the court. Her grandfather, Rameka Puhi, who called his granddaughter ‘‘his heart’’ at Duff’s trial, bowed his head when Downs refereed to forensic evidence that said Puhi-Duff’s head injuries were similar to being kicked in the head by a horse.
Both Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon and defence lawyer Moana Dorset raised Duff’s troubled childhood, which Dorset described as not ‘‘pro social’’. Gordon took a different view.
‘‘No amount of historical trauma can excuse the murder of a nine month old baby,’’ she said.
Downs also said Dorset provided
Duff with a spirited defence, despite the fact that ‘‘in truth you had no defence’’. At his trial forensic pathologist Dr Dianne Vertes, who gave evidence via audio visual link from New York, said the cause of death was blunt force cranial trauma. The infant, who was found to have traces of methamphetamine in her system, was alone with Duff at the time of her death.
Under questioning from Gordon, Vertes also revealed she found a number of injuries on the child. The court heard from Puhi-Duff’s mother Melina Puhi, who told the jury how much her daughter loved her father and their daughter would often only settle for Duff. Puhi said she had no concerns leaving their daughter in his care. Duff’s love for his daughter was even admitted by Gordon.
‘‘She was loved by the defendant, and he was by all accounts up until this day [the day she died] a good dad,’’ she said.
Duff exercised his right not to give evidence at his trial but the jury of seven men and five women were played a DVD police interview where Duff described the moment he awoke on the couch where they had both been sleeping and realised his daughter was dead.
‘‘I knew she was gone but then it was like I don’t know what to do.’’
Dorset maintained throughout the trial that the infant’s death was the cumulative result of a number of falls she had suffered, and took aim at some of the language used by the expert witnesses, calling them ‘‘assumptions and presumptions’’.
‘‘Possible doesn’t cut it, probable doesn’t cut it, unlikely doesn’t cut it. These are words that can’t hit the high standard of unreasonable doubt,’’ she said.
Gordon, however, said Crown evidence clearly proved the cause of death to be a brain injury.