Not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter
October sentencing set for man found responsible for partner’s toddler’s death
The man accused of murdering a Mangawhai toddler has been acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. Aaron Archer has been on trial in the High Court at Auckland for the past two weeks, accused of murdering his former girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, Ariah Dawn Roberts.
The toddler received an unsurvivable head injury while in his care in their Mangawhai home on August 22 last year.
After almost two days of deliberations,
the jurors yesterday returned a majority not-guilty verdict to the charge of murder. Instead, they delivered a majority guilty verdict to the alternative charge of manslaughter. He will be sentenced on October 21.
Archer stood motionless in the dock as members of Ariah’s family cried in the public gallery. One man could be seen shaking his head.
The 31-year-old was left to look after Ariah for 15 minutes while her mother popped out to the supermarket in August last year.
During that period the girl sustained an unsurvivable head injury that quickly killed her and a postmortem later identified more than 20 bruises on her head.
The jury had to decide whether Ariah’s injuries were the result of a deliberate assault or a tragic accident.
Three experts agreed her cause of death was a blunt force head injury but how the bruising to her head could be explained was disputed.
The Crown argued the nature, scale and pattern of bruising to the girl’s head meant her injuries were non-accidental.
Archer declined to give a statement to the police — as is his right — but various witnesses said he told them he was swinging the girl around when she hit her head.
His defence team argued the sum of Ariah’s bruises could be explained by an accidental impact, normal toddler tumbles and one incident when the girl was attacked by the pet cat and knocked her head on the coffee table.
During the course of the trial the court heard Ariah wasn’t the first child her mother — who has permanent name suppression — has lost.
Ariah had been a twin but her brother was born premature and died.