A young step-mother has been found guilty of the manslaughter of 2-year-old Harlee-Rose Niven.
Jessica Lee Rose Mulford appeared to fight back tears as the jury foreman delivered a not guilty verdict on a murder charge before saying she was instead guilty on the alternative charge of manslaughter.
The jury also found the now 20-year-old guilty on a charge of injuring with intent to injure the toddler in the months before she died.
Sobs were heard across the packed public gallery as members of the families affected struggled to contain emotion.
Mulford has been on trial in the High Court at Hamilton defending a charge of murdering the toddler in Hamilton on April 9, 2022, and injuring her with intent by strangulation in Tauranga on November 9, 2021.
Harlee-Rose died of “catastrophic” abdominal injuries in Waikato Hospital after being found unresponsive and blue in her bed by Mulford.
The Crown claimed Mulford killed the toddler after she “snapped”, having built up resentment at having to take over the shared full-time care with Harlee-Rose’s father, Dylan Berry.
However, the defence submitted Berry was also home that morning, and the toddler had had several other accidents in the days leading up to her death in which she was bruised.
The 11-person jury was sent out to begin deliberations at 3.45pm on Thursday before returning their verdicts at 5:30pm on Friday.
The public gallery has been packed full of supporters throughout the past two weeks of trial.
Mulford’s family has been sitting directly behind her, while Berry and his family have also attended each day along with the toddler’s mother, Paige Niven, and her family.
‘Underlying frustration and resentment’
Crown prosecutor Rebecca Mann told the jury in her summing up yesterday, “The evidence is clear, Jessica Mulford inflicted significant force on the abdomen of little Harlee-Rose and by doing so caused her death”.
“The Crown case is that she did so with murderous intent ... that either she intended to kill Harlee-Rose or, at the very least, intended to cause her bodily injury in circumstances where she knew she would likely cause her death and went ahead anyway.”
Mann submitted the killing came against a backdrop of earlier “underlying frustration” and resentment at having to take over shared care with Berry, from the toddler’s mother, Paige Niven.
She asked the jury to focus their deliberations on the key points in time when the Crown alleged Mulford applied the force; first around Harlee-Rose’s neck, and to her abdomen.
Mann said Mulford knew Harlee-Rose was in pain that morning; she gave her the “biggest dose” she ever had of ibuprofen, a 200mg tablet, and put a bandage on her as the toddler said she was “sore”.
Mulford had also come up with several reasons for the bruises, which Mann dubbed, “the literal definition of clutching at straws”; a fall in the shower, in the bath, off her trike, and scooter.
Mann said medical experts had ruled those out as being able to cause such “catastrophic” injuries, as “significant” force would be required.
Waikato Hospital paediatrician Dr Hamish McCay testified that Harlee-Rose would have become “very unwell” within minutes after the force was applied, she said.
There was unchallenged evidence that the only person who had been alone with Harlee-Rose the morning she died was Mulford, she’d said so herself.
The experts had also ruled out a ‘magic carpet ride’ she’d earlier had with her dad as causing the injury, while the defence witness on Wednesday recalled it happening two weeks prior.
The evidence was also clear, she claimed, in relation to the injuring charge from November 2021, when the crown allege she was strangled.
Tauranga Hospital pediatrician Dr Anita Lala testified that Harlee-Rose’s face looked “quite congested”, most prominently on the cheeks and forehead, and under the jaw.
“I was concerned that a strangulation, non-accidental injury had occurred.”
‘His account is entirely self-serving’
Defence counsel Rebekah Webby summed up the defence position for the jury, with a quote from her client.
“I didn’t do anything that morning to inflict any harm or pain on Harlee-Rose Niven”, which was what Mulford told Detective Jenna Hudson during her police DVD interview on October 22, 2022.
Instead, Webby suggested, the jury should look more closely at Berry’s actions that morning, and how he’d “distanced himself” by saying he was outside.
“Miss Mulford has a consistent story. Mr Berry’s does not have a ring of truth.
“His account is entirely self-serving.”
Berry told the court he was sitting outside listening to the birds chirping and playing with their cat, “it does not make sense”, Webby suggested.
She noted that even the police weren’t sure when interviewing Mulford in October 2022, stating they had “suspicions” she inflicted the injuries.
“Suspicion ... that’s not the standard of proof that we have got here”, adding that neither ESR nor the experts could tell them who inflicted the injuries.
“The reason Miss Mulford is before you today is because she changed Harlee that morning, but it completely and utterly ignores the reason she has given, that the child was already sore.”
Mulford had been open with police, volunteered information, and kept blaming herself for giving the girl too much ibuprofen.
As for her texts to the child’s mother and her own mother, it was simply Mulford venting as she was having a “bad day”, and just part of everyday life as a parent.
However, a jury has disagreed deciding she was the person who hurt and later killed Harlee-Rose.
