Raiden Heretini Wati Niania

Faces of Innocents: Raiden Niania may have been shaken - but his dad walked free. Story by Marty Sharpe: Four-month-old Raiden Niania died from a brain haemorrhage after being admitted to Hawke's Bay Hospital in January 2004. His father, Arthur Niania, was acquitted on a charge of manslaughter after a three-and-a-half-day trial in April the following year. A jury heard that that the baby boy had been left alone with his father at a Flaxmere house for a short time on January 15. Police alleged that Niania, then 22, had become enraged at the baby's crying and had shaken him so severely that the infant suffered an injury that left him brain-dead. Niania denied this and said he had lifted his son out of his cot after hearing him gasping for breath, and that if he had shaken him, it was out of panic. Raiden died after his respirator was turned off, about 30 hours after he was admitted to hospital. Jane Zucullo, a perinatal and paediatric pathologist, told the court that Raiden would have stopped breathing or suffered breathing difficulties and lapsed into a coma within an hour of the injury to his brain stem. An autopsy performed by Zucullo on January 17 showed fresh haemorrhaging to the brain that was, at most, five days old, and older haemorrhaging that was between five days and two months old. Zucullo said these sorts of injuries in a child so young were usually caused by a whiplash-type injury that led to apnoea - a loss of breathing or abnormal breathing. Niania spent nearly 15 months in jail between his arrest and the trial. He was released after the jury spent four hours deliberating before reaching a verdict of not guilty. Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/faces-of-innocents/79913981/faces-...