CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4765, 17 October 1924, Page 2

CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST. BODY OF STILLBORN CHILD. The adjourned inquest was opened at the Courthouse this morning, before Mr F. E. Flatt, district coroner. Mr E. W. Porritt appeared for the accused and Sergeant D. A. Mac Lean attended on behalf of the police. James Bidois, father of the accused, said that he was a labourer residing in Coibett Street, Paeroa, and had no knowledge of his daughter giving birth to a child, although the daughter lived in the same house. He admitted that the accused had had two illegitimate children previously, when he had made provision for a doctor and a nurse, and would have done so on the last occasion had he known that the accused wtqs pregnant. He had not seen the deceased. Walter W. Little, medical practitioner, Paeroa, said that o«n October 12 he had held a post-mortem examination on the body of a male child. As far as he could judge, the child had been born about six weeks. After a careful examination of the body he was of the opinion that it had been a full-time child. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition. The examination of the body disclosed that the bones on the right side of the skull were separated, and one of the bones on the right side bore a spoon-shaped depression. Witness said that it was difficult to state definitely owing to the decomposed state of the body, but the indications were that the child had been stillborn. The separated bones of the skull were, in his opinion, due to decomposition. The depression might have been caused after birth by a bump or fall, or by the head of the child resting on a stone in the ground. It was a difficult matter, to say if the child had ever breathed, said witness. If the chßd had breathed with sufficient strength at birth it would have been possible to detect it in the lungs, but witness was of the opinion that if the child had breathed at all it must have been very feeble. He. did not consider the separation of the skull bones was due to violence, and he did not think, assuming the depression in the head had been caused by a fall, that it would have caused death.

10 the Coroner witness said that the depression coul.d have’ been caused duiing delivery of the child. To Mr Porritt witness said that the impression could have been caused by the mother falling and striking a projection.

William Fulton, medical practitioner Waihi, corroborated the 'evidence tendered by the last witness, and stated that he was fully of the opinion that the child had not breathed. He had assisted throughout the post-mortem, and agreed that the depression found in the -skull was not sufficient to cause death. The Coroner said that he had to be guided largely by the evidence of the doctors, and returned the verdict that the body found was that of a fully developed male child given birth to by Elsie Annie Bidois at, Corbett Street, Paeroa, during August, 1924, and in his opinion the evidence was sufficiently clear to show that the child was still-born.