Why are we maiming and killing our children New Zealand? Read below!
An Auckland toddler, in excruciating pain from broken bones, probably knew crying for help would bring no relief.
'Three minute silence' against child abuse
Police believe the 18-month old west Auckland boy, now getting treatment in Auckland's Starship Hospital, had probably learnt from previous abuse and broken bones he would get no help if he cried out.
"Quite often when babies have been in a situation like that they don't cry because there is no point in crying when nobody is going to do anything," said Detective Sergeant Megan Goldie from the west Auckland child abuse team.
"He might have just suffered in silence."
The toddler was likely to spend the next week or so in hospital recovering from broken bones as social workers looked for a foster home for him.
He was rushed to hospital in June with a broken thigh and a broken arm and doctors have told police he may have had the injuries for two to four weeks before he was seen by a doctor.
He would also have been in excruciating pain.
However, police confirmed the toddler had been in hospital before with broken bones when he was only four months old. Then he had a spiral break to his left arm but was not taken for treatment for 10 days. In a spiral break the bones are twisted apart.
He had been living then with his mother's sister, her husband and their two children.
When the latest injuries happened he was living with his parents and three siblings.
The toddler and his siblings had been removed from his parents by Child Youth and Family (CYF) and his parents had been banned from visiting him in hospital.
One of the latest breaks to his bones was a displaced fracture in his leg, meaning the bones had been allowed to move apart because they had not been treated.
"They are trying to get them to mend but the fact that they have been left for quite a while before they have gone in there, creates certain problems for them mending."
The earlier break on his left arm when he was only four months old was "wickedly displaced", she said.
She said every time he was dressed or moved with the latest injuries he would have been in extreme pain.
"The doctor said he would have been in extreme pain and he wouldn't have put any weight on his leg at all because it was so badly broken."
She said it "just about broke your heart" when she saw the toddler in hospital.
"He was lying there. There was no family around him because they have been told they can't go and see him. So here is this little 18-month-old lying in bed by himself."
- NZPA
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