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An agitated and impatient Auckland father fatally wounded his infant son while his partner was out doing the laundry, a jury has been told.

Tipene Te Ahuru, 32, is standing trial at the Auckland High Court charged with murdering 3-month-old Amaziah Te Ahuru nearly two years ago.

His trial before Justice Jane Anderson and a jury of eight men and four women began today, when prosecutor Luke Radich opened the Crown’s case.

Te Ahuru has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Defence lawyer Daniel Taumihau, representing Te Ahuru alongside Kelly-Ann Stoikoff, told the jury the issue they would need to consider is whether he had the intention and foresight to cause his son’s death.

“Or was this all just an accident?” Taumihau said.

Te Ahuru and his partner, Amaziah’s mother, were at home in their unit in Reagan Rd between Papatoetoe and the Manukau town centre on September 18, 2022.

“This trial is about what happened in that half an hour or so when Mr Te Ahuru, agitated and impatient, was alone with Amaziah,” Radich said to the jury.

Amaziah’s mother needed to leave the unit to do some washing at a public laundromat just down the road.

But Radich said she wasn’t completely relaxed about leaving their home even for a short time.

Amaziah had been a bit unsettled and Te Ahuru was agitated, Radich said.

The mood in the Papatoetoe unit was tense.

“Nonetheless, the laundry needed to be done.”

Tipene Te Ahuru appears in the Auckland High Court today, the first day of his murder trial. He is accused of murdering his baby boy on September 18, 2022.

Within only a few minutes, Te Ahuru was trying to call her.

She missed six calls in a short space of time as she loaded large quantities of laundry into several machines, Radich said.

She eventually tried to call him back.

He did not pick up, so she went back to her car and rushed home, leaving her washing in the machines and running a red light.

When the couple eventually connected on the phone, Te Ahuru said something about their boy not being fully conscious or breathing, Radich said.

She told him to get off the phone and call an ambulance.

But when she got home he had not phoned 111, the prosecutor said.

“She immediately realised something was drastically wrong with her son.”

Radich played a recorded phone call to the jury of the boy’s mother calling 111.

“My baby’s barely breathing,” she told the operator.

The boy was taking breaths only every 20 seconds or so and did not appear conscious, she said.

“Oh my God … tell me he’s not going to die,” she is heard saying.

The operator talked her through performing CPR before paramedics arrived and took over, eventually managing to restore the child’s breathing.

Te Ahuru did not shed much light to the paramedics or his partner on what had happened.

“Seemingly it was a mystery,” Radich said.

“Except that it wasn’t.”

The Crown case is that Te Ahuru shook his son and struck him against objects.

“It was an assault, and it was fatal, and it was murder.”

Radich said the prosecution case is not that Te Ahuru planned the assault.

But he had murderous intent because he either intentionally murdered his son or injured him knowing death could result, Radich said.

“Intent can and frequently is formed in an instant.”

While paramedics had managed to restore Amaziah’s breathing, the damage was done, Radich said.

The baby, who had been alive barely 100 days, had suffered a head injury causing a brain bleed, he said. He was placed on life support but died 11 days later.

“Brain bleeds are serious things.

“Brain damage is always a risk when this happens. Bit by bit, brain cells begin to die.”

The brain damage was not Amaziah’s only injury, Radich said.

He also had bleeding around his spinal cord, retinal haemorrhaging - bleeding from the eyes - abdominal trauma and a broken arm, the prosecutor said.

After his son was taken first to Middlemore then to Starship hospital, Te Ahuru told varying stories about what happened, Radich said.

He first said nothing happened, then said he dropped his son and later claimed to have shaken him.

The Crown case was none of those descriptions are accurate, Radich said.

What is not in doubt is who killed Amaziah, he said.

“It’s not a whodunit.”

The jury is set to hear from Amaziah’s mother later on Monday before several detectives and medical experts will give evidence.

The trial continues.

George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald