Father who punched baby and swung him into sofa guilty of manslaughter

Clarity Turu was only 5 months old when his father wound tape around his head and mouth, punched him in the face and twisted his tiny arm until it broke.

The baby’s ordeal culminated in his father, Hamuera Rawhiti, grabbing him by his ankles, raising him up and swinging him into the arm of a sofa.

Rawhiti’s abuse caused Clarity a severe and fatal head injury.

Rawhiti initially lied to the police, telling detectives the injuries were caused by his attempts at resuscitation. It was only 2½ years later, during his trial in the High Court at Auckland, that Rawhiti admitted beating Clarity.

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“I couldn’t handle the crying,” he told the court.

Rawhiti admitted causing his son’s death but said he had no idea his abuse could kill his baby.

His lawyer, Julie Anne Kincade, KC, reminded jurors in her closing address that they must determine what Rawhiti was thinking at the time “not what he should’ve thought, or might’ve thought or what you or I would think”.

The Crown said it was murder, that Rawhiti knew punching a baby in the face and slamming his head into a sofa could kill, but he chose to do it anyway.

In his closing address, Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes summarised it this way: “You might think [that is] an extraordinary level of violence to use upon a child… when he did that, he knew death could well result.”

On Thursday, jurors returned their verdicts of not guilty to the charge of murder. Justice Neil Campbell convicted him of manslaughter.

Clutching a bible, Rawhiti wiped tears from his eyes as the verdict came down.

On the morning of October 22, 2020, Rawhiti was looking after Clarity by himself in their Ōtara unit.

His then partner, Clarity’s mother, had caught a bus to Hamilton to see her children from a past relationship.

Rawhiti said he woke to his son crying. He confirmed he “hurt him” but couldn’t remember exactly how.

He told the court he remembered twisting his son’s arm. “I remember the click.”

When asked how, he explained matter-of-factly: “Just bending the arm… I just snapped it.”

He also remembered punching Clarity in the face, describing the force of the punch as not his hardest but also not his lightest. How many times? Again, he could not be sure.

Rawhiti said he picked his son up by the legs and swung him so his head hit the sofa.

When asked what he had hoped to achieve, Rawhiti said: “I wanted him to stop crying.”

He described hearing his son take a deep breath, possibly his last, and running outside with the boy in his arms to get him air.

“I was shocked and confused about what I just did. I didn’t know what was going through my head at the time to do that.”

Clarity died of a severe head injury that caused severe bleeding on his brain. A post mortem examination later found evidence of 17 blows to his face and head.