{"id":417128,"date":"2026-05-08T00:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417128\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:40:13","slug":"man-pleads-not-guilty-to-three-murder-charges-following-death-of-mother-and-two-infants-in-hastings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417128\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads not guilty to three murder charges following death of mother and two infants in Hastings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">The names of all involved remain suppressed until the man\u2019s next court appearance, which is scheduled for July 9. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Police said earlier that the man and the deceased had all been living together and that they were not looking for anyone else. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">One child was dead when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/hawkes-bay-today\/news\/woman-and-two-young-children-killed-in-hastings-flowers-laid-at-scene-as-police-confirm-new-details\/DVZLCKH76NCKHMQU46LT43XWQA\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/hawkes-bay-today\/news\/woman-and-two-young-children-killed-in-hastings-flowers-laid-at-scene-as-police-confirm-new-details\/DVZLCKH76NCKHMQU46LT43XWQA\/\">emergency services were called to the house<\/a> about 6am on a Sunday. The woman and the other child died after being taken to hospital. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Lawyer Elizabeth Hall today entered not guilty pleas to all three charges on the man\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">A three-week trial has been scheduled to start on August 30, 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Justice Karen Grau told the man, who had a heavily bandaged left hand, that he would need to appear before the court in person at his next appearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Justice Grau was sitting in the Wellington court with another audio-visual link to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/napier\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/napier\/\">Napier<\/a> courthouse, where Crown prosecutor Clayton Walker was situated and family members looked on from the public galley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/murder-charges-laid-in-hastings-triple-homicide\/FAMHVXMZ25HIHKXWXWF24T3LKU\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/murder-charges-laid-in-hastings-triple-homicide\/FAMHVXMZ25HIHKXWXWF24T3LKU\/\">statement released on behalf of the family<\/a> on April 22 said they were \u201cheartbroken and devastated by the tragic loss of our loved ones in Hastings\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThey were deeply loved and will be missed beyond words,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The names of all involved remain suppressed until the man\u2019s next court appearance, which is scheduled for July&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,1873,634,5504,3368,5194,78,12516,5158,6178,4275,111,43,139,5006,69,1118,3367,1529,61,1237],"class_list":["post-417128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-charges","tag-death","tag-following","tag-guilty","tag-hastings","tag-in","tag-infants","tag-man","tag-mother","tag-murder","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pleads","tag-three","tag-to","tag-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417128","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=417128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}