4) fresh chest scratch

4) That a chest scratch was fresh. Most definitely against evidence Judge Stevens was well aware of. W, paramedic, (trial 10) “old sore on left breast”. E, paramedic, (trial, 59) “small looking older wound on her left”, (trial, 61) “didn’t seem to be fresh, it looked old” “scabby”. Dr J, Tauranga hospital specialist paediatrician, (trial 89) sore could have been several days old. Dr K, Crown specialist paediatrician, (trial 282), thin scab on it. Dr Z, Crown forensic paediatric pathologist, (trial 463), could be several days old, Tauranga photo looks no different to when Dr K saw it (19h later). R, told police in his statement he’d noticed a chest scratch a few days before, but this was not said at trial, nor did my lawyer ask. It had occurred the Sunday before, so was four days old exactly how I explained it occurred very early on. Accidentally! When I went to grab Melissa’s left arm with my left hand when she slipped in the shower and was about to fall face first on the shower door edge. In the close up of the photo it can be faintly seen where two other of my fingers barely scraped also, due to the manner of quickly reaching my hand toward Melissa’s arm as she faced me. I had told my lawyer of the faint evidence of the indentation of two other fingers also, but she refused to do anything about it. There happened to be a very faint chest mark on the right hand side of Melissa’s chest at about the same height and about half the size of the fresher one that was well and truly healed over and pigmented prior to Melissa coming into my care. It was so barely noticeable that Tauranga hospital staff tasked to photograph injuries had not noticed it. Dr K said this mark was ‘identical’ to the fresher one I accidentally inflicted, to say each mark occurred in two episodes of like abuse sessions. By appearance with extreme close up photos the crown used at trial, I can see an old school sore at the end of this old mark. It appears to me as though it would have become an open wound by Melissa scratching it, as she had done with a number of her school sores in my care and as her other healed sores looked. Dr K interpreted them to mean I had used restraints (tied Melissa up) on two occasions, but strong inference was also put upon my injuring her in a grip of shaking twice.