NZ News
Parents sentenced in Whanganui over neglect of sick teen boy, who later died
A teenage boy spent several days at home, unwell with a cough and growing steadily sicker.
It was not until the sixth day that his parents sought medical help. But by then, it was too late.
An ambulance took him to a hospital, where he was found to be suffering from a lung infection, and his condition continued to deteriorate.
The boy, from the Manawatū-Whanganui region, was significantly underweight and had sores on his body, indicating he had been lying down for a period of time.
Ultimately, the lung infection led to a cardiac arrest and stroke, and he later died.
His parents’ failure to seek medical help sooner has now led to their conviction for neglect of a child, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.
Last week in the Whanganui District Court, Judge Justin Marinovich described the case as one of the more difficult sentencings he has been involved in.
“There are a significant number of layers that all mould together to make a determination relatively difficult,” he said.
While information to the court suggested there were concerns raised in 2012 relating to the boy, and he had been underweight for much of his teenage life, the judge said his assessment was limited to the six days set out in the charge.
“I need to be careful that I assess your culpability for the charge and time period rather than guess or speculate as to what may have been between 2012 and the time of the charge,” Judge Marinovich told the couple, who can not be named.
The couple were sentenced in the Whanganui District Court. Photo: Supplied / Ministry of Justice
‘Can’t have it both ways’
The judge noted there had been “discussions” around the summary of facts and how it was to be presented for a sentencing indication and a plea.
While acknowledging the boy’s death “hung over all of this”, he pushed back against attempts to characterise the offending more seriously than the now “narrowed” scope in the summary allowed.
“Can’t have it both ways… manslaughter – hold your guns, go through it. Charge wilful neglect through an extended period of time – hold your guns, go for it. Reduce it to a period of six days and a scope, then that’s what I need to sentence on,” Judge Marinovich said, speaking to Crown prosecutor Amber Kearny.
“And I need to sentence in the context of it occurring in awareness that the victim was sick, aware that he had a cough and was unwell, realising too late and calling the ambulance.”
Defence lawyer Jamie Waugh, who made submissions on behalf of both defendants, emphasised the summary was clear in that there was no causation by omission, nor did the couple accept anything beyond what they had pleaded guilty to.
He submitted that when sentencing the pair, the judge should take into account their remorse, loss of their son, previous good character and prospects of rehabilitation.
Waugh argued that following deductions, a sentence of community detention was the most appropriate outcome.
While Kearny did not seek an end sentence of imprisonment on behalf of the Crown, she submitted that community detention did not meet the purposes and principles of sentencing, a position accepted by Judge Marinovich.
‘You both hold responsibility’
He adopted a starting point of 36 months’ imprisonment, accepted by the couple at an earlier sentencing indication, and found there were no personal aggravating factors.
The judge said he had received a significant amount of information on the case, including presentence reports, submissions and affidavits from the couple.
“It is clear to me that this has been distressing to you,” the judge said, addressing the couple.
He accepted that neither of the defendants had previously appeared in court, they supported one another and were focused on their remaining children, who appeared to be flourishing, and were both remorseful.
The judge said the reports reflected the couple’s acknowledgment that they should have sought help for their son sooner.
“You try to explain or justify in your minds why you didn’t, but acknowledge that you should have, there you both hold responsibility and both say that you live with your choices every day,” he said.
“I accept that the remorse that you have expressed is genuine. I don’t determine that the remorse you expressed is because of your predicament.
“It’s the reality of your situation, that your omissions led to health issues for your son, those health issues ultimately led to his organs wanting to shut down and his health deteriorating.”
The judge allowed a 5 percent discount for their remorse and a further 5 percent for their previous good character and prospects of rehabilitation.
However, he did not give credit for the loss of their son, saying he accepted there was no causative link to his death, “hence the charge”, but there was still an omission that led to his neglect.
After credit for the couple’s guilty pleas, the judge reached an end sentence of 23 months’ imprisonment, which he commuted to 11.5 months of home detention.
The couple also applied for permanent name suppression, relying on the extreme hardship that publication of their details may cause their children.
Judge Marinovich granted the application, finding the impact it would have on the children, who were victims too, having lost their brother, outweighed the public interest in the case and the seriousness of the offending.
Source: New Zealand Herald & RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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