MAORI CHILD’S DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 737, 9 August 1929, Page 16

MAORI CHILD’S DEATH

ERROR OF JUDGMENT BY MOTORIST FATALITY ON NARROW ROAD (From Our Own Correspondent) ROTORUA, Thursday. The adjourned inquest concerning the death of a Maori child, Polly Taitini, aged 18 months, was resumed yesterday morning before the actingcoroner, Mr. W. L. Richards, J.P., and a jury o£ four. Mr. H. O. Cooney, of Te Puke, watched proceedings on behalf of Mr. C. Pattie, of Matata. Medical evidence given by Mr. Phil-lips-Turner and Ur. R. Dorset disclosed that death was due to injury of the brain. This could not have been brought about by disease, and marks on the head were consistent with a fall from the mother’s back on to the road. Mrs. Taiatini, mother of the child, gave evidence that she and five other Maoris were walking along the road at Mourea when a motor-lorry approached them. As the lorry got opposite witness, she saw her dog in front of it. The next thing she knew was that she ha£ been struck by a motor-car. She fell with the child still on her back. She got up, the child still on her back, and saw that the car had pulled up a chain and ahalf away from where she was standing. She knew the child was injured when she got up and passed it over to her mother. Her youngest sister, who was in front of witness, was also knocked down. She thought the car was travelling fast. She heard no horn sounded. There was not sufficient room for the car to pass between the lorry and where they were standing. The lorry stopped after the accident. Witness knew no reason why she should have been struck, as she was walking off the road. There was nothing to obstruct her view of the road. Corroborative evidence was given by other natives. The jury returned the following verdict: —The death of Polly Taiatini was caused by a car driven by Clifford Horton Pattie striking the child’s mother, thereby knocking her down, the child, from medical evidence, apparently striking her head on the road, causing concussion from which the child died three days later. We think the car driver, Pattie, displayed an error of .judgment due to want of experience as a driver, in being too close to the lorry and in attempting to pass at the time, there being insufficient room. We recommend, in a similar case where Maori parents persist in removing a child in such a dangerous state, the police be communicated with before granting permission, so that they may prevent such removal.