The woman who was the primary caregiver of 2-year-old Arapera Fia told jurors today she continues to have blank spots in her memory of the days leading up to the toddler’s violent death.

“I just blocked the whole thing out,” the witness, whose name is suppressed, said of the self-described amnesia during hours of contentious cross-examination today. “I can’t remember a lot of things [from] that period of time. I’ve just closed myself down from it.

“... It’s not a decision. It’s the trauma.”

The woman had been set to go to trial in the High Court at Auckland this month for manslaughter alongside her on-again-off-again boyfriend Tyson Brown, who is accused of the child’s murder. She instead pleaded guilty to manslaughter - for her role in failing to protect the child - days before the trial began.

So instead of a co-defendant of Brown’s, she is now testifying against him while awaiting her own sentencing.

Brown’s lawyer, Lester Cordwell, has contended from the outset of the trial last week that the primary caregiver was the person responsible for Arapera’s fatal injuries. The child arrived at Starship hospital on October 31, 2021, covered in bruises, with a spinal injury and having suffered blunt force trauma to the head. She died hours later.

The woman spent most of yesterday questioned by prosecutor Luke Radich, sometimes crying as he showed her photos of the child’s injuries. She wept again today as the defence showed her a photo of bruising that was taken covertly by her concerned flatmate five days before the child’s death.

She insisted that she didn’t remember seeing the distinct bruises across the toddler’s torso despite giving the girl a bath nearly every day.

 “How do you know if you caused those bruises on the 26th if you have unintentionally blocked that out?” Cordwell asked.

“I know I did not hit her hard enough to make marks,” the woman responded.

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Cordwell responded: “Because you blocked them out, you can’t say one way or the other whether you caused them ... Aren’t you saying, ‘I hope I didn’t cause them’?”

She insisted the lawyer was wrong.

“Just because I blocked things out doesn’t mean I don’t know that I didn’t do it,” she said.

Cordwell pointed out repeatedly during his questioning that 2021 had been a stressful year for the witness, and she agreed. There was the breakdown of a long-term relationship at the start of the year followed by her cutting off contact with a large portion of her extended family.

Then in August 2021, Auckland’s extended Covid-19 lockdown began, resulting in the loss of childcare. Brown tested positive for Covid-19 on October 28 and the entire household had to isolate. The woman tested positive on October 31, the day the child is believed to have received her fatal injuries. Adding to the stress, the woman agreed, was that the food parcel she had received after her positive test wasn’t enough to cover the necessities.

“You started toilet training during lockdown. That wouldn’t have been easy,” Cordwell said, to which the woman agreed. “Did you use swats and slaps to train her?”

“I did sometimes,” she responded, reiterating that she never smacked the child hard enough to leave a mark.

Cordwell also suggested during his questioning that she was disinterested in the child - more “obsessed” making videos for social media app TikTok.

He pointed out that her testimony was often in direct contradiction of at least four witnesses, including one of her flatmates, a police officer and a health worker who identified the woman in a lineup as someone who had treated the child so roughly it had stuck in her mind.

In each instance, the woman said the other witnesses were wrong.

Her testimony continues this afternoon.