Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Father admits neglecting children

Updated at 10:15 am on 24 August 2012

A Porirua man sentenced to a year in jail for neglecting his children will not be sent to prison, because of the length of time he has spent in custody on remand.

The 55-year-old, whose name is suppressed, pleaded guilty in the High Court at Wellington to one charge of neglecting his eight children.

The man, his partner and another man had been facing charges of abusing the children, but the case collapsed last week when the trial judge, Justice Mackenzie, ruled that the children's evidence was unreliable.

The Crown on Thursday agreed to roll eight child neglect charges the man was facing into one representative charge and he pleaded guilty.

Social workers who removed the children from their home in Porirua in 2010 found little food in the dirty home, and the children sleeping in filthy, smelly bedding.

The children's mother pleaded guilty on Monday to a similar charge and will be sentenced in September.

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