Plea to get doctor's help 'ignored'

Last updated 05:00 12/05/2009

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CRAIG SIMCOX/The Dominion Post Zoom

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

ANDREW GORRIE/ The Dominion Post

FRIGHTENED WHANAU: Grandmother Janet Moses tells the court that concern at her grand-daughter Janet's illness turned to fright when threats were made.

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The grandfather of a woman allegedly drowned during a curse-lifting ritual says he thought she could have been sick from a makutu, or curse, but a doctor should have been tried first.

In the High Court at Wellington yesterday, Charles Moses, the paternal grandfather of Janet Moses, gave evidence at the trial of nine members of her maternal family charged with manslaughter in October 2007.

"They were trying to help her but they went down the wrong road to do it," Mr Moses said.

As well as the manslaughter charge, two people whose names are suppressed are charged with cruelty to a 14-year-old girl in their care.

The Crown alleges the girl was also "cleansed" and her eyes gouged. The girl's eyes were red and swollen closed when she was taken to hospital, but the scratches on her eyelids and cornea were superficial and healed.

Mr Moses said he told one of the accused, John Rawiri, to try a doctor for Janet Moses. "I told him to go and take her to a Pakeha doctor. If she was in the depressed state as she looked to be, take her to a Pakeha doctor first."

He accepted she could have had a makutu. Her eyes were glazed and she only occasionally seemed to see others.

The last time he visited the Wainuiomata flat where the family had gathered, he left before he "blew up".

"I said `you are dealing with things you don't know anything about', but he [John Rawiri] didn't hear me.

"Of course they did not know what they were doing look what happened," Mr Moses told the court.

Ms Moses' namesake, her paternal grandmother, Janet Moses, told the court that Ms Moses' behaviour changed in the days leading up to her death. She became unresponsive, and the family was told spirits had to be removed from her and a concrete statue of a lion had to be returned to the Greytown Hotel from where another family member had taken it.

Mrs Moses said she sat beside her granddaughter on the trip to return the statue. At one point Ms Moses had leaned over and tried to open the door and push her. "And then she said, `When this car stops I'm going to kill you'."

When the car stopped, Ms Moses said: "Now".

Mrs Moses said: "She just turned at me and I was gone."

THE ACCUSED

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* 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.

* 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, the time it is alleged by the Crown that Ms Moses and others were subjected to a ceremony resulting in her drowning.

- © Fairfax NZ News