Two brothers on trial for murdering three-year-old Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie had to be separated as the jury viewed a videotaped interview yesterday.
In the interview, Wiremu Curtis said his brother Michael and girlfriend Oriwa Kemp were responsible for the assault which led to Nia's death.
Prison guards had to step in and separate the brothers when Wiremu said Michael told him to lie about how Nia was injured. During a break in the proceedings, an agitated Wiremu was surrounded by prison and court security guards, while Michael was led separately to the court cells. Nia died at Auckland's Starship Hospital on August 3 last year, 12 days after being taken to Rotorua Hospital in a coma.
Doctors have told the court they may have been able to save her had she received medical treatment sooner.
On trial in the High Court at Rotorua are Nia's mother Lisa Kuka, the Curtis brothers, Kemp and Nia's cousin Michael Pearson.
The Curtis brothers have denied murdering Nia and the others have pleaded not guilty to her manslaughter.
The Crown alleges both Curtis brothers kicked Nia in the head on July 22 last year.
In the videotaped interview Wiremu said Michael had told him to say Nia had fallen off his shoulders when Wiremu was tackled by other children, and warned him "not to talk to you" (police).
In an earlier video interview, also shown to the court, Wiremu told police that Nia had slipped off his shoulders when he was tackled by two children acting "like a tag team". In one taped police interview played to the jury yesterday Wiremu Curtis said Kemp was the only person who used wrestling moves on Nia and denied he had done so.
He spoke of Kemp regularly hitting Nia and throwing shoes at her head.
He told police he felt responsible for causing the girl's fatal injuries because she had fallen from his shoulders while he was playing with her and her siblings.
In a second taped interview Wiremu Curtis spoke of Kemp dragging Nia by her legs and "slamming" the girl's head into a table and said Nia had been abused by both Kemp and his brother Michael Curtis in the two weeks before she suffered fatal injuries.
Crying throughout the second interview, Wiremu Curtis said on the day Nia received the injuries believed to have caused her death, his brother and Kemp had performed wrestling moves on Nia.
A short time later she was asleep, doing "the funky chicken" and foaming at the mouth.
Two written statements and five videotapes of interviews with Kuka were to be presented to the court today.
The trial, before Judge Judith Potter and a jury of 11 is expected to take another week.
