Counselling ‘saved’ grieving father

A bereaved father says counselling to cope with the grief following the death of his six-week-old baby saved his life.

On February 3, 2015, the infant was killed in her Taranaki home by her mother, the man’s former partner.

After drinking alcohol and taking a sleeping pill, along with her daily dose of methadone, the woman sat down to breastfeed her child but fell asleep, slumped over the baby girl and suffocated her.

She was found guilty of manslaughter following a High Court jury trial last year. In August, she was convicted of the crime and sentenced to nine months’ supervision. An appeal against the conviction was lodged immediately and a Court of Appeal hearing into the matter is scheduled next month.

An interim name suppression order remains in place which means the woman cannot be named.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the tragedy, the baby girl’s father said the death had taken a toll on him and the wider family.

Prior to the baby’s death, he and the woman had been together for eight years but had since broken up. They have another child together.

Nearly two years on from the baby’s death, he said he had still not been able to talk openly with his former partner about what had happened.

‘‘Every time I mention it, she shuts down,’’ he said.

‘‘She’s never to this day given me her side of it.’’

He first heard many of the details when he sat through the court trial last year.

Despite the fact he still harboured feelings for his expartner, he believed she needed to be held accountable for what happened.

‘‘She has to be held responsible for what she did,’’ he said.

But, he hasn’t let himself off the hook either.

He still feels guilty for not doing more to keep the children safe. ‘‘I feel guilty about the what ifs,’’ he said.

He was aware of the woman’s alcohol and drug problems and admitted to battling one of his own during the course of their relationship too.

‘‘Alcohol was my poison, I don’t deny that,’’ he said.

Despite the baby girl’s short life, he remembered the time he got to spend with her fondly.

‘‘I remember picking her up in my arms - she was just a bundle of joy,’’ he said.

He said he had lashed out at people in anger in the months following the baby’s death and had also cried a lot as well.

‘‘In order to let the pain out, you have to shed a tear and I did. I shed many a tear,’’ he said.

He also made the decision to go to counselling, something he said had saved him.

‘‘I went to this men’s group and that helped me heaps. That really opened the door for me,’’ he said.

‘‘If I didn’t seek help, I don’t know where I would have ended up.’’

He knows the memory of his little girl will always be with him and he thought about her every day.

‘‘I’m always aware of what could have been,’’ he said.

Now, he takes a lot of joy in spending time with his other child.

‘‘To me, that’s my serenity, with her.’’

‘‘Without her, I’d be lost,’’ he said.