The couple found guilty of killing Taupo 3-year-old Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri have been sentenced to 17 years each at the High Court in Rotorua.
Tania Shailer, 26, and David William Haerewa, 45, were originally charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of manslaughter and ill treating a child.
Judge Sarah Katz said the sentence of 17 years is the highest handed down in New Zealand for the manslaughter of a child.
Marches and protests took place outside courts around NZ at the time of the pair’s sentencing, protesting the manslaughter – rather than murder – charge.
Moko was assaulted over two months in Taupo last year after his mother, Nicola Dally-Paki, left him with Shailer and Haerewa while she was caring for another child who was sick in Auckland’s Starship hospital.
While in the pair’s care, Moko was tortured, kicked, stomped on and slapped. Shailer and Haerewa rubbed Moko’s faeces in his face and the child eventually suffered facial swelling, internal bleeding, septic shock from his leaking bowel and swelling of the brain.
Moko was left suffering those injuries for four days before the couple rang 111. They claimed he had fallen off a wood pile.
Crown Prosecutor Amanda Gordon had asked for the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for Shailer, and described the offending as one of the worst cases of manslaughter imaginable.
During sentencing, Justice Katz told the court: “Any remorse you may now feel is very much at the lower end of the scale and does not entitle you to any discount on your sentence.
“You are either in denial or have little insight into the gravity of your offending.”
In her victim impact statement, Moko’s mother told the pair of the never-ending pain they had caused her and her wider family.
“Tania you were meant to be my friend. Someone that I could trust and instead you tortured and killed my baby,” Dally-Paki said.
“David, I did not know you well, but I now know both you and Tania as monsters. You subjected my children to hell. I believe you subjected your own children to hell as well. I feel for your children, my heart breaks for them as well.”
“I would easily exchange the pain that Moko endured and have that inflicted on me if that would save his life. I would take the beatings, the horrific abuse, that they gave my son. I would take being kicked and bit, I would take all of the torture if that would save Moko’s life.
“But I can’t, Moko is lost to me forever. My son should have never died this way, no child should ever die this way. In my mind Tania and David’s actions were premeditated. Tania even tried to blame Moko for his own injuries, who even does that? Tania even tried to blame me. Who does that? Tania and David did and that is why they are evil.”
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