CHILD’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 May 1942, Page 3

CHILD’S DEATH

FATHER SENT TO TRIAL. WAITARA TRAGEDY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, May 13. As a result of the death of a child aged nine months on December 3, 1941, its father, Colin Clifford Taylor, of Waitara, was charged in the Magistrates’ Court' 1 today with failing to provide adequate medical care. He was committed -for trial in the Supreme Court. Evidence of the condition of the child when brought to her was given by the district nurse at Mokau, Sister. I. M. Sinclair, who said that the father ascribed scalds on the child’s body to bathing in water that was too hot and other bruises to a fall from: a table. Asked why he had not brought the child to her sooner, he said it was difficult to get out from his home up the Mokau River. Dr H. C. Barrett, surgeon at the New Plymouth Hospital, said he thought the conditions disclosed that the child had been desperately ill for some days, though that might not always be evident to the lay mind. The child would need to have fallen from a considerable height on to a projecting object to have sustained its stoved-in injury of the chest wall. H. W. Sampson, launch owner, gave evidence that his launch made daily trips up the Mokau River from October to January 17.