Pickering was later charged with Poseidyn\u2019s murder but acquitted by a jury in 2022.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t take the stand during the criminal trial and today was Pickering\u2019s first time telling a court what happened in his own words.<\/p>\n
A normal day coming down<\/p>\n
September 5, 2020, began as a normal Saturday for Pickering and his then partner, Poseidyn\u2019s mother, Filoi Huakau.<\/p>\n
The pair told the court they were heavy users of methamphetamine in 2020, using and staying awake for five-day periods or until their drugs ran out.<\/p>\n
After using drugs at other people\u2019s houses, the couple, with their 2-year-old daughter and Poseidyn, would return to Huakau\u2019s mother\u2019s home for a couple of days to come down.<\/p>\n
September 5 was a come-down day and Pickering remembered being woken by Huakau that morning, telling him she was taking Poseidyn to visit a family friend.<\/p>\n
He stayed home with his daughter and when Huakau returned with the baby she cooked some food while Pickering stayed in their room.<\/p>\n
Throughout the inquest, Pickering has been described as a quiet person who kept to himself and liked playing video games.<\/p>\n
While the couple were coming down, they mostly stayed in their room in the Manurewa home where the family of four shared a bed.<\/p>\n
About 3pm on the day of Poseidyn\u2019s fatal injuries, Huakau popped out briefly to get some cooking oil.<\/p>\n
Lily Nunweek, counsel to assist coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon, at the inquest into the circumstances and death of baby Poseidyn.<\/p>\n
Counsel to assist the coroner Lily Nunweek said they know from CCTV footage that Huakau was gone for about 16 minutes.<\/p>\n
Pickering told the inquest when Huakau left, he was lying on the left side of the bed playing Xbox with his daughter asleep at the foot of the bed.<\/p>\n
Poseidyn was sleeping near the pillows, to Pickering\u2019s right, until, about five minutes after Huakau left when Pickering said the baby woke up and started crying.<\/p>\n
Moving to settle Poseidyn, Pickering accidentally woke up his daughter and the two kids began playing together on the bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot long after that, they have a scuffle, I hear a \u2018donk\u2019, turn, and Poseidyn\u2019s crying,\u201d Pickering said.<\/p>\n
Police at a Manurewa house as part of the investigation into the death of 10-month-old Poseidyn. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
He only heard the scuffle and a \u201csolid wood … donk\u201d sound, but did not see what happened as his eyes were trained on the television, he told Nunweek.<\/p>\n
He gave his daughter a \u201csmall whack on the bum\u201d for what he believed made Poseidyn cry, which made the toddler begin crying, too.<\/p>\n
The father held a crying Poseidyn until the baby quickly fell asleep.<\/p>\n
His daughter also cried herself back to sleep, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you picked up Poseidyn … did you feel there was anything off about him?\u201d Nunweek asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Pickering replied.<\/p>\n
It only took a \u201ccouple minutes\u201d for the baby to settle down and go back to sleep he told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything different about his skin colour?\u201d the lawyer asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Pickering replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything different about his eyes?\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
When Huakau returned home, she kissed the baby and the family all fell asleep on the bed until Pickering woke to the feeling of what he thought was Poseidyn pinching his cheek.<\/p>\n
Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon presides over the inquest into the 2020 death of baby Poseidyn. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n
A \u2018very large amount of force\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you tell me what you saw as soon as you opened your eyes?\u201d Nunweek asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoseidyn gasping for air,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
The medical specialists, including an intensive care doctor and forensic pathologist, had previously given evidence at the inquest, Nunweek reminded Pickering.<\/p>\n
The specialists had described Poseidyn\u2019s head injuries as very serious, non-accidental and would have been caused by a \u201cvery large amount of force\u201d, Nunweek said.<\/p>\n
A 2-year-old, like Poseidyn\u2019s sister, wouldn\u2019t have had the strength to cause the injury, the lawyer explained.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The specialists] also said that after it would have happened, Poseidyn would have become unconscious very quick and if he did stay awake for a little bit it would be very obvious that something was wrong,\u201d Nunweek said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring that time you were the only adult in the room with the children?\u201d she asked. \u201cThere was no one else in that room?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Pickering replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the period of time when something happened to Poseidyn, do you agree, was between when … Filoi went and came back?\u201d Nunweek asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Pickering responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he never woke up again,\u201d Nunweek continued. \u201cKnowing that, I want to ask you: is there anything else that happened in that room that could explain how he got that head injury?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I don\u2019t know,\u201d Pickering said.<\/p>\n
After the lunch break, Kima Tuialii, counsel assisting Huakau, asked Pickering some questions.<\/p>\n
She also zeroed in on the critical 16 minutes when Pickering was \u201cthe only adult with Poseidyn\u201d while Huakau was out.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you agree that the injuries suffered by your son were incredibly serious … [and] that the skull fracture to [Poseidyn\u2019s] head was really bad,\u201d Tuialii asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Pickering replied.<\/p>\n
She asked if he saw Huakau or any other adult hurt Poseidyn that day, to which Pickering answered no.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to understand … how these injuries occurred. Are you able to help me with that?\u201d Tuialii said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I can\u2019t, sorry,\u201d Pickering replied.<\/p>\n
Counsel to assist Pickering, Kingi Snelgar then got up and asked a follow-up question.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been asked a lot about the injuries to Poseidyn today,\u201d Snelgar said. \u201cBefore Filoi [Huakau] left to get the oil, who was looking after Poseidyn?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFiloi,\u201d Pickering responded.<\/p>\n
Pickering\u2019s testimony concluded the inquest\u2019s oral evidence.<\/p>\n
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously 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":"Pickering was later charged with Poseidyn\u2019s murder but acquitted by a jury in 2022. He didn\u2019t take the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[163866,68,34384,6794,7681,9218,8604,634,2209,2082,178239,22263,692,27501,168624,33262,13999,9933,19475,111,43,139,69,168622,3168,4499,6642,1361,165,6923,102],"class_list":["post-331965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-10monthold","tag-air","tag-alone","tag-baby","tag-bedroom","tag-before","tag-caused","tag-death","tag-father","tag-for","tag-gasping","tag-happened","tag-he","tag-heard","tag-hemopopickering","tag-hour","tag-inquest","tag-later","tag-minutes","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-poseidyn","tag-shared","tag-small","tag-tells","tag-that","tag-their","tag-what","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331965","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=331965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}