Background
Stormy Lee Ryder was sentenced for the manslaughter of her 19-month-old son, Tūwharetoa, who died on 27 June 2024. Tūwharetoa had been born extremely premature at approximately 27 weeks alongside a twin sister, spending his first five months in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. He suffered a significant brain bleed in the NICU, leading to secondary hydrocephalus, and was subsequently diagnosed with cerebral palsy in August 2023, leaving him with compromised vision and hemiplegia affecting the left side of his body. He was entirely dependent on his mother for nutrition, hydration, and medical care.
Following the twins’ discharge from hospital, Ryder received extensive community health support — including home care nurses, a dietician, a speech and language therapist, and a neurodevelopmental therapist — but her engagement with those services progressively deteriorated. Between March and June 2024 she attended only one appointment away from home, refused or ignored health workers at her door on multiple occasions, and in the critical final weeks allowed no professionals to assess Tūwharetoa. On the evening of 26 June 2024 she refused to let two Plunket nurses examine the children, then left all three children at home alone and unattended for several hours overnight.
Around 5:00 am on 27 June 2024 she found Tūwharetoa floppy and unresponsive, but waited approximately 90 minutes before calling 111. Paramedics found him non-breathing, pale, and emaciated. A post-mortem determined the direct cause of death was complications from starvation and dehydration: he weighed only 6.23 kilograms at death, down from a low-normal 8.53 kilograms at his last weigh-in in February 2024. Ryder pleaded guilty to manslaughter at the outset of trial, having accepted a sentence indication from Powell J given on 14 April 2026.
The Court’s Holding
Powell J confirmed a starting point of six years and three months’ imprisonment, rejecting the defence’s application — made on the basis of a forensic psychiatric report by Dr. Lokesh prepared after the sentence indication — to reduce the starting point to four years. The Court held that the psychiatric report fell far short of supporting a reduced starting point. The report relied heavily on Ryder’s self-reports, was highly generalised, provided no analysis of her state of mind during the critical period before Tūwharetoa’s death, and did not account for the child’s documented weight gain up to February 2024 or Ryder’s failure to seek help despite observing visible deterioration in his condition over weeks. The Court further held that the statutory elements of infanticide under s 178 of the Crimes Act 1961 were not established: the report did not demonstrate that the balance of Ryder’s mind was disturbed by reason of the effects of childbirth or lactation, and Dr. Lokesh himself made no such suggestion.
The Court applied a cumulative discount of 45 per cent from the starting point to reflect Ryder’s personal mitigating factors. A 25 per cent reduction was granted for personal background and addiction issues — including complex PTSD arising from childhood and adult trauma, likely post-natal depression, and a methamphetamine dependency that impaired her ability to care for Tūwharetoa — following the Supreme Court’s guidance in Berkland v R [2022] NZSC 143 that causative background factors warrant a discrete sentencing discount. A further 5 per cent was allowed for remorse (accepted as genuine, though belated, and arising only once trial commenced) and 5 per cent for rehabilitation prospects, with Ryder having become drug-free in custody. A 10 per cent discount was applied for the guilty plea, entered on the second day of trial.
The resulting end sentence was three years and five months’ imprisonment. The Court also made an order under s 205(2)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 prohibiting publication of the written reports filed in support of sentencing, including their reproduction in defence counsel’s written submissions, though the order did not extend to oral submissions made in open court.
Key Takeaways
- A psychiatric report obtained after a sentence indication was given does not automatically reopen the starting point; it must materially affect the basis of the indication, and a report that is generalised, self-report-based, and silent on the defendant’s state of mind during the offending period will not suffice under s 116 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011.
- The statutory infanticide defence under s 178 of the Crimes Act 1961 requires specific evidence that the offender’s mind was disturbed by reason of the effects of childbirth or lactation — broad psychiatric diagnoses such as PTSD or major depressive disorder will not satisfy that test in the absence of expert opinion directly addressing the statutory criteria.
- Under Berkland v R, background factors (including trauma history, cultural disconnection, and substance addiction) that causally contributed to the offending warrant a meaningful sentencing discount at the personal factors stage, even where they are insufficient to reduce the culpability-based starting point.
- Extreme vulnerability of the victim, prolonged neglect, active refusal of offered professional help, and failure to summon emergency services for over 90 minutes after finding the child unresponsive are significant aggravating features in child manslaughter by omission.
Why It Matters
This decision provides important guidance on the evidentiary threshold required before a post-indication psychiatric report can disturb an agreed sentencing starting point, and on the limits of infanticide as a conceptual framework in child-neglect manslaughter cases. Courts and practitioners will note that the procedural mechanism of the sentence indication under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 creates significant stability: a defendant who accepts an indication takes on the burden of demonstrating genuinely new and materially different information before the sentencing judge will revisit the calculus.
The case also illustrates the tension between holding caregivers criminally accountable for failures of omission and recognising the genuine psychiatric and social burdens that can overwhelm vulnerable parents — particularly in cases involving medically complex children. Powell J’s approach of holding the starting point firm while applying a substantial 45 per cent personal discount reflects an attempt to balance denunciation and accountability against the explanatory (if not fully exculpatory) weight of the defendant’s documented mental health, addiction, and trauma history.