Conflicting accounts of night toddler James Daniel Tabuai died of fractured skull
A court has heard heartbreaking and at times conflicting evidence as a family torn apart by the death of its firstborn son takes part in a coronial inquest into the seven-month-old’s death.
Cairns
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THEN only a young girl of 11 or 12, Nyrah Tabuai entered her room on the night of February 1, 2013, and lay down on her mattress next to her nephew.
James Daniel Tabuai was a few days shy of seven months old, and Nyrah immediately noticed something was not right.
Giving evidence at the coronial inquest into the infant’s death this week, Nyrah – now 21 – told the court when she went to her room her uncle Ehammed Anderson was on his bed, watching a movie and playing on his phone, and his daughter was asleep.
Bubba James – as his family requested he be referred to – was breathing in a heavy, deep way.
“It sounded like a hiccup, but stuck,” Nyrah told the court.
She said she brought it to the attention of her uncle.
“What did he say to you?” counsel assisting the coroner Molly Mahlouzarides asked.
“He said at the time that babies do that,” Nyrah said.
Nyrah patted bubba James back to bed and then fell asleep herself shortly afterwards.
But evidence presented before Northern Coroner Nerida Wilson during this week’s three-day inquest in Cairns showed that bubba James’ abnormal breathing was in fact a symptom of something far more sinister.
By the time Nyrah lay down next to her nephew in her mother Germaine Lenoy’s Edmonton home that night, the evidence suggested he was already dying from a significant non-accidental blunt force impact, which had fractured both the back and sides of his little head and left him with an acute traumatic brain injury.
On the final day of the inquest, forensic paediatrician Dr Deanna True told the court Nyrah and others’ observations of bubba James at that point of the night were consistent with how she would expect a child suffering from those fatal injuries to behave.
And she put the “mechanism” of the injury within minutes of his death, rather than hours.
“I would believe he’s probably had an immediate change in his breathing, that’s not sufficient to maintain life and he’s also become unconscious,” Dr True said.
Nyrah’s observations were consistent with what she called “altered breathing”, she explained.
“It’s often described in that way, people describe it as a gasping or like, struggling to breathe, or making funny noises or sometimes … it is described differently by different people,” Dr True said.
At about 10.30pm, Nyrah woke to the sound of bubba James’ mum Synoa Tabuai, in the hallway outside the room, screaming that her child wasn’t breathing.
He was rushed to hospital and was pronounced dead at 11.59pm.
No one has ever been charged over the toddler’s death, which investigating officer Detective Sergeant Glenn Wallwork described to the court as an “unsolved homicide”.
Det Sgt Wallwork described to the court the extensive policework that went into investigating bubba James’ death over the years, including the obtaining of 46 statements from friends and family, covert strategies, coercive Crime and Corruption Commission hearings, re-enactments, and the obtaining of 16 medical-related statements and reports.
The firstborn son
There was excitement in what was then a tight-knit family unit when Synoa became pregnant with bubba James in 2011.
He was the first boy, and as Synoa told the inquest, it was always the plan for the first boy in the family to be named after her late father.
Everyone was happy, Synoa said, including herself.
“I was over the moon, I couldn’t believe I was pregnant,” she said.
She told the court she messaged bubba James’ father, Theo Davis, to let him know, but found out from his then-girlfriend that Theo was in jail at the time.
She said she’d messaged him to “feel accepted and just try to work something out, like you know, even if it was co-parenting”.
Bubba James was born a happy, healthy baby on July 5, 2012.
“Yeah he was bubbly and yeah he always looked for me, I always looked for him,” she said, adding that their bond was close.
Ms Mahlouzarides asked if she coped as a single mum.
“I reckon yeah I did not a good job, but an alright job for being a single parent.”
She said she wished Theo had been around more so they could be a family.
“Yeah at that time I did want, like, to be a family, and James could have a full-time dad. But he was still in and out of jail, so yeah,” she said.
Theo also had another girlfriend at the time.
The court was read messages between Synoa and Theo from January 17 which painted a deteriorating picture of their relationship.
“OI C*** HOPE UR SLUT WASN’T DER WHILE MY SON WAS THERE WIT U MF, IF I FIND SHE WAS THERE TELL UR SLUT I BE AFTER HER U DIRTY DOG AN STAY WIT UR DOG USE TO NOTHING BUT LOWLIFE C***S,” part of the message read.
Another one from January 24 read: “I want some help with James but no u to busy wit ur slut”.
On the day of bubba James’ death, Synoa messaged Theo about taking out a protection order against him.
Another message read: “I BE SEEING YOU IN COURT FOR CHILD SUPPORT AND NO CONTACT ****SUCKER”.
Synoa gave evidence that it was stressful trying to work out how Theo would fit into James’ life, and she had a tough time working out her emotions around that.
“I just wanted help,” she said.
“Could it be hard to control your emotions sometimes,” Ms Mahlouzarides asked.
“Yeah, back then, yeah,” Synoa said.
“Would your mood sometimes depend on how much attention and help you were getting from Theo,” Ms Mahlouzarides asked.
“Yeah, that’s all I wanted was help. I was new to everything … I didn’t know how to cope with being a single mum,” Synoa replied.
Synoa told the court how she would sometimes give bubba James to others to look after while she had a drink by herself, or with other members of her family.
Her mum Germaine described to the court how she believed her daughter had “a lot of frustrations” at the time, and felt one of Synoa’s main concerns was her relationship with Theo and that she wasn’t taking the care of her son seriously enough.
Germaine would hear stories from others in the family of Synoa’s drinking.
Synoa’s brother-in-law Ehammed Anderson painted a picture of Ms Tabuai as a garrulous drinker who he said had been seen to treat the child roughly on occasion.
Her sister, Renee Tabuai, said she nagged Synoa over parenting issues.
“Because Synoa wasn’t … she was a good mum and everything, she wasn’t ready to just be mum, she still wanted to have her fun,” she said.
At one point, the court heard Germaine in a conversation with her other daughter Danielle, had even considered taking bubba James into her care.
Bubba’s injuries
Bubba James’ autopsy showed that in addition to his fatal injuries, he had suffered another, less serious head injury in the weeks prior.
It was nonetheless an injury which left him with a bleed on the brain.
No member of the Tabuai clan has ever been able to offer a plausible explanation for either set of injuries.
Ms Mahlouzarides in her closing submissions to the coroner said the evidence before the inquest suggested the earlier injury had occurred by January 14, 2013, when during a family visit Germaine noted James looked tired, was not playful or smiling, with his head lolling off to the left.
The court heard she saw him vomit clear fluid, and she urged Synoa to take him to a doctor.
Ms Tabuai took bubba James to the doctor the next day.
The doctor completed a referral for bubba James to attend the Emergency Department at the Cairns Hospital and he instructed Ms Tabuai to take her son there immediately.
She did not.
Ms Tabuai first claimed to the inquest on Wednesday to have no memory of the doctor visit at all, but then said she recalled a different visit to a 24-hour medical centre and accepted she had been told to go to hospital with bubba James.
Ms Mahlouzarides asked if she was worried what doctors might find out if she took her son to hospital on that day.
“No, I was tired,” she said.
“Too tired to worry about what might be wrong with James?” Ms Mahlouzarides asked.
“Yeah I know it was selfish of me,” she said.
Conflicting accounts
On the night of Bubba James’ death, the various adult family members who were present in the home – Germaine, Danielle, Ehammed, and Synoa – gave somewhat conflicting accounts of what happened.
On Synoa’s evidence, she stayed outside drinking on the driveway the whole night because she thought James was asleep.
On Ehammed’s evidence, Synoa came into the house when Nyrah noticed bubba James’ abnormal breathing.
Ehammed said he was watching a movie at the time.
“She come to the room and lent over him and said that’s how he goes,” Ehammed said.
Danielle said she went into the room and checked on James, and Ehammed woke up.
Bubba James’ breathing concerned her, so she told Synoa out on the driveway.
“She said that’s how he breathes. He’s just like his father,” Danielle said.
Closing submissions
In her closing submissions to the inquest at the conclusion of three days of evidence in Cairns this week, Ms Mahlouzarides said Synoa had the support of a large family, all of whom loved bubba James.
“According to the evidence, James grew up a happy baby who was loved and cared for by a large extended family,” she said.
“The medical evidence shows however that within this loving family, bubba James sustained several significant injuries, one of which caused his death.”
The court heard no one had ever offered a plausible explanation for any of bubba James’ injuries.
“None of the family members in what was then a tight-knit family can offer the court any explanation as to how James came to suffer these very serious injuries when they were all staying at the same small house together,” Ms Mahlouzarides said.
“My submission is it is open to Your Honour to find the family has not been honest with this court or the police as to the extent of their knowledge about who and what caused James’ fatal injuries.”
Ms Mahlouzarides also submitted that Ms Wilson may find that Synoa, as the primary carer for bubba James and the person who had admitted to being under the influence of alcohol that night was the person who was most likely to have inflicted the fatal injuries.
Synoa had told the inquest she found her emotions hard to control at that time, and was stressed and angry with bubba James’ father that day.
“Synoa told this court she felt that Theo mislead her about wanting to be with her and possibly have another baby with her,” Ms Mahlouzarides said.
“This is not to suggest that Synoa deliberately hurt James.
“But Your Honour may find she was in a state of mind where she may have snapped and dealt James far too roughly.”
Ms Mahlouzarides also noted that on the evidence, Ms Wilson could not conclusively exclude Germaine, Danielle or Ehammed.
Synoa’s lawyer Angela Taylor submitted her client had come to the inquest “and faced the music, essentially”, and that she had made some unfavourable concessions about her parenting.
Ms Taylor also pointed out how Danielle and Ehammed’s evidence differed from that of Germaine, Nyrah, Synoa, and Synoa’s sister Renee, which she described as having “commonalities”.
Ms Taylor also said it was her client’s evidence that she wasn’t left alone with her baby that day, and that from the evidence before the court “it appears that might be quite true”.
“It would appear there would be very limited opportunity for her to be by herself with the baby that day,“ she said.
“It would be my submission there was not the opportunity for her to deliver the injury.”
Ms Wilson said she expected to deliver her findings within one to two months.
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