Janet 'would have wanted family help with demons'

Last updated 05:00 09/05/2009

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CRAIG SIMCOX/The Dominion Post Zoom

Hall Jones Wharepapa, 46, is jointly charged with the manslaughter of Janet Moses.

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The mother of a woman allegedly drowned after an exorcism ritual said her daughter would have wanted her family to help rid her of her demons.

Olivia Rawiri told the High Court at Wellington yesterday that she was not present when the cleansing ceremony on Janet Moses, 22, took place in October 2007.

She was in another room of the Wainuiomata flat, and it was hours later that her brother John Rawiri broke the news her daughter was dead. "My brother came in to tell me: `Sorry sis, we've just lost our baby."'

Nine people are on trial charged with the manslaughter of Ms Moses in Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt. The accused are her uncle and his wife, five of her aunts and two of their partners.

The Crown says Ms Moses drowned during a ritual to cleanse her of a curse, a makutu.

Ms Rawiri acknowledged that some people might think the idea of makutu was the "craziest thing they had ever heard".

But she told the court she believed the makutu was making her daughter ill and a doctor could not help her. She said Ms Moses would have wanted her family to help.

The court also heard from Aroha Te Kani, of Rotorua, who admitted taking a concrete lion from Greytown Hotel a few weeks before the ritual, along with Ms Moses' sister Gina.

A tohunga, or priest, had told her family that the lion was a taonga, a treasured item, that must be returned to help lift the curse.

Eight carloads of people returned the lion and Ms Te Kani tearfully said she should have gone too.

"I took it and I should have been the one to take it back with Gina." She said that after the death she blamed herself.

Several of the accused wiped their eyes as Ms Te Kani left the court still crying.

The court was also told the lion was not a historic taonga as the family believed. Former publican Michael Shale said he bought two lions new in the mid-1990s and put them in the hotel's garden bar.

A Maori friend of Mr Shale's died while staying at the hotel and a ceremony to cleanse the room was held, he said.

The lion also prompted gasps and nervous laughter when a loud squeal echoed through the courtroom as it scraped a table while being moved. "That was not the lion," a court worker assured the startled hearing.

The second week of the trial begins on Monday.

THE ACCUSED

Nine members of Janet Moses' extended family are charged with her manslaughter, which the Crown alleges was the result of an attempt to remove a curse a makutu or evil spirit.

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The accused are: John Tahana Rawiri, 49, Georgina Aroha Rawiri, 50, Aroha Gwendoline Wharepapa, 48, Hall Jones Wharepapa, 46, Tanginoa Apanui, 42, Angela Rangiaroha Orupe, 46, Gaylene Tangiohorere Kepa, 44, Alfred Hughes Kepa, 48, and Glenys Lynette Wright, 52. All are siblings of Ms Moses' mother, or their partners.

Two people, whose names are suppressed, are charged with cruelty to a 14-year-old girl in their care.

The charges date from October 12, 2007, at Wainuiomata, when the Crown alleges Ms Moses and several others were subjected to a water-based ceremony resulting in Ms Moses drowning.

- © Fairfax NZ News