Attribute to Detective Senior Sergeant Rebecca Cotton, Wellington District Child Protection Team
Wellington Police are investigating how two young Lower Hutt children suffered injuries so horrific that both required hospitalisation and surgery.
Police investigators believe the siblings’ injuries were inflicted deliberately and likely over a period of time. We are now asking for help from the public to uncover what happened to the four and five-year-old children.
Concerned hospital staff had alerted officers to a potential family harm incident at a residential address in Stokes Valley on Friday 8 March after a young child sustained serious injuries and was transported to hospital by ambulance.
A medical assessment of the child and their sibling revealed further injuries believed to have been sustained in previous incidents.
Their injuries were so extensive one required surgery, and it has taken weeks to understand the full extent of damage to their bodies. Both have a multitude of broken bones, extensive bruising and one child had brain bleeds and severe internal injuries.
These injuries do not just happen; it’s likely someone knows something or has seen something and that’s why we need the community’s help.
The children recently moved with family to a Stokes Valley address from a Waterloo address and had been at their new home for just two nights when they were hospitalised.
Police are seeking any information around any suspicious activity seen or heard at either address, or nearby, on or prior to Friday 8 March, that may assist Police in our investigation.
Police have already conducted area enquiries and we are now reaching out to the wider community for help with our investigation.
If you have any information that may assist Police, please contact us on 105 or via 105.police.govt.nz and reference file number: 240308/4647
Alternatively you can report any information anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
ENDS
Issued by the Police Media Centre
