{"id":309116,"date":"2026-03-02T08:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T08:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/309116\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T08:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T08:03:08","slug":"coroners-inquest-begins-into-manurewa-death-of-baby-poseidyn-reigns-hemopo-pickering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/309116\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner\u2019s inquest begins into Manurewa death of baby Poseidyn Reigns Hemopo-Pickering"},"content":{"rendered":"

A jury found Poseidyn\u2019s father, Anthony Pickering, not guilty<\/a> of the baby\u2019s murder in 2022.<\/p>\n

Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon opened the inquest in Newmarket Hearing Centre, Auckland<\/a>, with a karakia and the baby\u2019s mother, Filoi Huakau, said a few words about her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was gentle, he was soft, he was pure,\u201d Huakau said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could feel the love he had to give if he had the chance to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CoronerCoroner Tracey Fitzgibbon at the inquest into Poseidyn Hemopo-Pickering\u2019s death.
\nPhoto\/ NZME<\/p>\n

At the time, Huakau said the boy appeared fine when she left him with his father in their Manurewa home on September 5, 2020.<\/p>\n

Pickering said he had been watching TV and heard a bang, which may have been the baby falling and hitting his head on the corner of a windowsill.<\/p>\n

Huakau returned home and the family had an hour-long nap until Pickering was awoken to Poseidyn making \u201cgrunting\u201d sounds, and an ambulance was called.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe severity of Poseidyn\u2019s injuries were not consistent with the story given by Poseidyn\u2019s parents,\u201d the doctor said.<\/p>\n

The paediatrician said she believed the baby\u2019s injuries were likely to have been non-accidental.<\/p>\n

She saw brain injuries like this when a child was \u201cswung like a cricket bat by the feet\u201d, and their head hits a hard surface, or when a hard object is swung with \u201cmassive force\u201d to hit the head.<\/p>\n

Traces of other injuries found<\/p>\n

She also noted traces of other non-accidental injuries on Poseidyn, such as evidence of an older brain injury and a healed broken thigh bone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall children shouldn\u2019t have bleeding in their brains,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The doctor also testified the fatal injury would have rendered the baby unconscious instantly and she could not believe the parents hadn\u2019t noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine you wouldn\u2019t know that this child was sick … this child would have looked badly, right from the start,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She attributed Poseidyn\u2019s injuries to child abuse due to systemic failures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the highest rates of child abuse in the world,\u201d she said. \u201cI see, that as a system, that has failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hearing also heard from Detective Sergeant Mark Jamieson, who was second-in-charge of the 2020 police investigation.<\/p>\n

He read details of a scene examination of Poseidyn\u2019s home made the day after the baby\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

He noted the home was shared with Huakau\u2019s sister and her partner, their three children, and their mother.<\/p>\n

There were a number of blood spots recorded on the walls opposite to the bedroom where Poseidyn was found unresponsive.<\/p>\n

The carpets were \u201cextremely dirty\u201d and two glass meth pipes were found concealed in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Coroner Fitzgibbon asked if police hfound no evidence of how Poseidyn had obtained his injury in the scene examination.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorrect,\u201d Jamieson replied.<\/p>\n

Counsel to assist the mother, Kima Tuialii, asked if the police officer was aware of her client\u2019s meth addiction on the day Poseidyn was brought to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Jamieson replied that he only met her the following day, after Poseidyn died, on the evening of September 6.<\/p>\n

Tuialii asked if there were there any concerns about the statements Huakau had given to police, <\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Jamieson replied, saying there were many changes and inconsistencies to the mother\u2019s statements \u201calong the way\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked if any of those concerns related to meth use, Jamieson said no.<\/p>\n

Junior counsel to assist the coroner<\/a>, Esmeralda Kwok-Cameron, asked Jamieson to confirm that Pickering had been found not guilty of Poseidyn\u2019s murder, which he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas the police position changed since that time,\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Jamieson responded.<\/p>\n

The inquest is set to continue until the end of the month, and will include evidence from Poseidyn\u2019s parents and wider wh\u0101nau, as well as medical experts.<\/p>\n

Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and has worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A jury found Poseidyn\u2019s father, Anthony Pickering, not guilty of the baby\u2019s murder in 2022. Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6794,11154,39018,634,168624,13999,296,80177,111,43,139,69,1118,168622,168623],"class_list":{"0":"post-309116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-baby","9":"tag-begins","10":"tag-coroners","11":"tag-death","12":"tag-hemopopickering","13":"tag-inquest","14":"tag-into","15":"tag-manurewa","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-of","21":"tag-poseidyn","22":"tag-reigns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}