victim impact statement<\/a> at sentencing detailing how Erutoe had isolated the woman from her family and the ongoing impact.<\/p>\n\u201cShe experiences paranoia, confusion and distress regularly. She talks to walls for companionship and often believes her children are hurt or dead. She has extreme fears that someone will come into her room and assault her.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said for years the woman was kept from special events and they were bribed to give Erutoe petrol vouchers and supermarket vouchers just to see her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur wh\u0101nau knows Susan\u2019s behaviour presents itself as a pattern,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is no accountability other vulnerable people could suffer similar harm in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Gross lack of care\u2019<\/p>\n
The woman said they had lost precious years with the victim under the guise she was receiving respectful care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat level of neglect shows a serious failure to provide even the most basic care and human dignity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very least, it shows a gross lack of care for her if you were unaware that she had that sort of wound.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crown agreed with the words of the victim and said Erutoe was in a position of trust and authority which she abused.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant was the formal caregiver, she was paid by the state to provide that care, she accepted that position and was paid with state resources to provide a level of care and it was a level of care she did not meet,\u201d Goodwin said.<\/p>\n
Erutoe\u2019s lawyer Connor Taylor said she was under a huge amount of stress and she did not know about the wound as bathing care was provided by another caregiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes she failed. She puts her hand up,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
Taylor said Erutoe did not have the skills in nursing or medical care which meant, she was going to fail.<\/p>\n
Judge Peter Davey did not accept she did not know about the wound given it had got to a potentially life-threatening state.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very least, it shows a gross lack of care for her if you were unaware that she had that sort of wound,\u201d Judge Davey said.<\/p>\n
Judge Davey accepted Erutoe was under stress but pointed out, she had never asked for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept there must have been a significant amount of stress on you in looking after both of them that\u2019s been outlined in the correspondence from the health professionals. But it\u2019s also difficult to recognise the stress from being unable to care for them and also some of the deliberate ways that you actually treated them. The assaults, the way you belittled them and the threats that you made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erutoe was jailed for two and a half years and Te Whata was sentenced to six months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The charges were laid in 2022, and the couple pleaded not guilty but in March, and one week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,27709,95,1763,27887,1968,230705,2082,14641,42919,111,43,139,1067,69,1118,6289,544,812,1961,96,36008,1455],"class_list":["post-453612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abuse","tag-adults","tag-and","tag-article","tag-caregiver","tag-discusses","tag-erutoe","tag-for","tag-jailed","tag-neglect","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-readers","tag-some","tag-susan","tag-this","tag-upsetting","tag-vulnerable","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453612","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=453612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}