She just wasn't taken notice of." A relative called her "woebegone" and a child who wasn't getting enough cuddles. "She always had a sad look on her face, she had no spirit, no life. Brown describes the toddler as a slow child developmentally. Joanne Brown, who had children at the kohanga, described Lillybing that morning as "a mess" with "shit all down her legs." It was a cold and rainy day and Lillybing's bare feet were pinky-purple with the cold and her nose was snotty. The preschool had recently changed hands and the sisters were working hard to bring it up to national safety guidelines for re-opening on the following Monday. They both worked there as administrators and Lillybing and their own children attended. On the Friday morning, Namana and Paewai took Lillybing and their own children to the Nga Waka Te Kohanga Reo in Carterton. She spent the night, as usual, sleeping in Namana and Hemopo's shabby bedroom. ![]() Neither she, nor her cousins at Charles St, were known to the Child, Youth and Family Services. Only two weeks short of her second birthday, the cherubic-looking girl appeared to be suffering only nappy rash, a cut between her toes and a few bumps and bruises. The day she arrived at Namana's, Lillybing seemed to be in good health. It was Namana who breastfed Lillybing as an infant and taught her to walk. Namana, helped by her blood-sister, Rongomai Paewai, a then-26-year-old beneficiary and mother, took over a lot of the upbringing of Lillybing, and even Terina Matiaha referred to her step-sister as the toddler's second mother. When Terina Matiaha was asked in court where Karaitiana was these days, she replied, "Wellington, I think." Terina Matiaha's first-born was given to her mother to bring up. Her father, Joshua Karaitiana, was 17 when she was born and had fathered her older brother when he was 14. Little Lillybing lived mostly in Masterton with her mother, grandmother and four of her aunts and uncles, aged between 10 and 18. The couple's first-born child was given up for adoption because Hemopo questioned its paternity, but was later taken back. Hemopo was seen as a loving father and his relationship with Namana seemed solid in an environment in which it was commonplace for men to come and go. The children were described as unworldly kids, who just didn't get much stimulation. Two rusting car wrecks - one full of fetid rubbish and nappies - took pride of place on the lawn. The Hemopo-Namana children, aged between 2 and 8, were rarely seen playing outside the house. ![]() So that afternoon, Josephine Matiaha dropped Lillybing off at the run-down weatherboard home in semi-rural Charles St, Carterton, that Namana shared with her partner, David Hemopo - the unemployed father of her children. Josephine would look after Lillybing's older brother, then aged 3. But she reluctantly agreed to take Lillybing until the baby was out of hospital. Namana told a friend that Terina Matiaha was a useless mother and she was sick of providing food and nappies for Lillybing when her own resources were so stretched. She had four children of her own and was heavily pregnant with another. On that Thursday Namana was not keen to have her. Often Lillybing would be dropped off on a Thursday and not picked up until Saturday. She was concentrating on the new baby, and Lillybing - christened Hinewaoriki Karaitiana-Matiaha but nicknamed after an aunty Lily - was spending more and more time with Matiaha's step-sister, Rachaelle Namana, then aged 27. Terina Matiaha would spend the next two nights at her hospital bedside, sneaking out that evening to call the numbers at housie. Earlier that day Lillybing's 9-month-old younger sister had been admitted to Masterton Hospital with diarrhoea and dehydration. It was housie night at Masterton East School and Lillybing's mother, Terina Matiaha, aged 23, and Matiaha's mother, Josephine Matiaha, were regulars. Thursday July 20, 2000, was the beginning of the end for Lillybing. ![]() ALISON HORWOOD chronicles how the little girl known as Lillybing came to the end of her short life.
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