Shantelle Flynn was chatting with a neighbour from her block of units while her son watched The Wiggles, when she saw a figure appear in the doorway.

The man who lived in the next-door unit was holding his partner’s 17-month-old in his arms, limp and barely breathing.

“I was just like, ‘oh my God’... she looked dead. She was floppy and she was gasping for breath.”

That man was Adrian Clancy who is being retried for murder in a High Court trial under way in Rotorua.

The Crown alleges he became frustrated and lashed out at Sadie-Leigh Gardner while her mother was at a beauty appointment.

The defence claims the little girl’s mother, who can’t be named for legal reasons, is more likely to have inflicted the unsurvivable head injuries that led to the toddler’s death in March 2019.

“She’s not alright”

Flynn gave evidence today saying she had been dancing around to the Wiggles with her son while she folded laundry. Her neighbour Leesa Hall had popped over for a chat, before Clancy came running from the next door unit in a “panic”.

Hall said as he ran past her she knew something was wrong with the “floppy” toddler.

Neither woman had heard any noises coming from Sadie-Leigh’s bedroom, which was right next to the front door of Flynn’s unit, in the minutes they’d been standing there before Clancy came over.

Hall had extensive experience in first aid and CPR training and told Clancy to lie Sadie-Leigh down on the floor of Flynn’s lounge.

As he did so, the toddler’s arms flew back, her eyes were shut, and she did a long gasp of breath.

“I thought she was dying,” Hall said.

Clancy said, “the baby’s alright”, to which Hall said she replied, “she’s not alright”.

Flynn rang 111 as Hall began CPR. Clancy had said to the women he thought perhaps Sadie-Leigh was suffering from asthma or was choking.

Hall said she knew the child wasn’t choking, having checked the airways, and she couldn’t hear any wheezing or rattling breaths.

Both Hall and Flynn told the court they saw blood around the toddler’s mouth - Flynn said it looked like dried blood, but Hall said it felt wet as she gave the toddler CPR, and she could taste it in her mouth.

She couldn’t see any external injuries or bruising.

Both women said Clancy used wet wipes to wipe the blood from around Sadie-Leigh’s mouth.

Flynn said he had left to go next door to get the wipes during her call to the 111 operator.

The 111 call was played for the court, with Clancy weeping for the duration of it, as members of the mother’s family also sobbed in the public gallery. The mother left the court before the call was played.

The Crown and defence cases

Flynn’s evidence revealed that her interactions with Sadie-Leigh book-end the time both the Crown and defence allege the incident happened.

The Crown says after the mother gave the child a dose of cough medicine, and headed off to get eyelash extensions, she left Clancy in sole charge.

Clancy was placing bets on the TAB app and watching TV, and was allegedly alone with the toddler for just under 20 minutes. This is when the Crown says the head injuries happened.

But defence lawyer Rob Stevens says the mother lashed out when she went in to give the cough medicine - becoming frustrated over the toddler’s fussing and refusal to take the dose from a syringe.

She “lost her sh**”, Stevens put to her under cross-examination, using language the mother had used in a message to the defendant earlier that month, sharing her concerns about her tendency to raise her voice in frustration at the toddler.

She denied ever physically harming Sadie-Leigh, but accepted she did get impatient and raise her voice at times.

Stevens says the mother wasn’t coping with the demands of the toddler, was sleep-deprived and overwhelmed with her “clingy” tendency, and wanted reprieves from caring for her.

Sadie-Leigh’s Plunket nurse said her last clinic visit happened when the child was 10 months old. The baby and mum had obvious signs of bonding and attachment, Sadie-Leigh was meeting her milestones, and her mother was doing a “good job”.

However, Stevens put to Flynn under cross-examination, that in March 2019 she was worried about her neighbour’s parenting.

“You were concerned about how little quality time [the mother] was spending Sadie weren’t you?” Stevens said.

Flynn confirmed the mother seemed to struggle with knowing how to connect and play with the toddler, and she had given her tips and advice about “floor time”, putting together a box of toys for her to use.

She also confirmed she’d heard the mother raise her voice “sometimes”, in response to Sadie-Leigh’s shouts and screams of toddler frustration.

She disagreed with Stevens’ proposition that words such as “little creep” or “little freak” were ever used, however, but said she had overheard swear words.

She couldn’t remember specifics, but thought it might have been words to the effect of “little sh**”.

Stevens suggested they weren’t the sort of words Flynn, also a mother, would ever have used when speaking to her child, but Flynn disagreed.

“I’ve used them, yes I have.”

Flynn told Crown Prosecutor Richard Jenson that Sadie-Leigh’s mother had “tried to be a good mum”.

She fought back emotion after Stevens suggested Flynn had “loved looking after Sadie” on occasions when she would play with Flynn’s son, or while the toddler’s mother went to appointments.

“Yeah I did,” Flynn said, her voice cracking.

Sadie-Leigh was just 17 months old when she died. The Crown says her mother's former partner, Adrian Clancy, killed her. The defence says her mother caused her injuries.

A dose of Irish Moss

One of the key sequences of events on the afternoon Sadie-Leigh suffered the head injuries that ended her life, related to a dose of Irish Moss cough medicine.

Sadie-Leigh had been battling a cold on and off for most of March, but in the days before she died it had been getting worse.

She’d been coughing to the point Flynn recalled hearing it through the wall overnight and offered a vaporiser to help the toddler sleep.

She’d also offered the mother some Irish Moss. But it’s in dispute as to when that medicine was given, and whether Flynn had stuck around long enough to hear or see the syringe dose administered.

Police statements given after Sadie-Leigh’s death appeared to have slightly different accounts - in one Flynn said she had given it to the mother the day before, on Tuesday.

But Flynn said in evidence and under cross-examination that she had definitely given the cough medicine to the mother on Wednesday afternoon, after she’d seen the mother and toddler return home mid-afternoon on Wednesday.

She’d helped take Sadie-Leigh inside, and had her on her knee while her own child played. She’d then gone home and come back with the Irish Moss.

Then the question centres on whether Flynn stayed while the mother took Sadie-Leigh into the bedroom to give her the dose.

Flynn confirmed to prosecutor Richard Jenson that she had swilled out the lid of the medicine in the sink before heading home, hearing the child make a couple of “grizzles”, and then nothing further.

She said she went home, folded washing, and had The Wiggles on. At some point, the mother had come over and taken Flynn’s son for a walk to get a drink from the dairy, before the mother left for her eyelash appointment.

The next time Flynn saw Sadie-Leigh was in Clancy’s arms, when he carried her over in need of help.

But the defence has challenged that sequence - suggesting the dairy trip could have happened before the Irish Moss dose, not after it.

Flynn said, under both cross and re-examination, that she “honestly couldn’t remember” in what order things happened.

The mother’s evidence was that she gave the dose of cough medicine, took her neighbour’s son to the dairy to get a drink, came home and went to the toilet, briefly checked on Sadie-Leigh “for a few seconds”, and then left for her eyelash extension appointment.

She says the toddler was asleep and breathing normally when she checked on her.

The trial continues.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.