Adoption dream became nightmare for 'Spiderman'

By Andrew Koubaridis

For Patricia Pickering, a baby of her own was a dream come true. But for the child given to her, Dylan Rimoni, it would be a nightmare.

She wanted a child and he was a baby who needed a mother.

A private family adoption made that possible, but instead of a happy life, the 3-year-old suffered broken bones, bruises and ultimately a bleeding and swollen brain.

Dylan's life support was switched off two days after he was admitted to hospital, and a post-mortem examination showed extensive brain damage.

While experts argued over the likely cause and timing of the injuries, one thing they agreed upon was that Dylan had suffered brain damage more than once before the injury that finally killed him.

A rib was healing, too, after being broken sometime in the three months before his death, on April 18, 2008.

This week, Pickering was found guilty of murdering Dylan but she was found not guilty of causing him grievous bodily harm and assault.

Her trial in the High Court at Auckland heard that Dylan had been mistreated and beaten over a long time.

Crown prosecutor Phil Hamlin told the jury that regardless of the good intentions Pickering had when she gained custody of Dylan, when she was alone with him and when the two individuals collided, "the consequences were fatal".

The trial was a "tale of two Dylans". One side was a happy-go-lucky little boy who used to run around the house doing things, flipping over and wanting to be "Spiderman". The second tale was what Dylan's body told police investigating his death.

Mr Hamlin said "bodies don't lie" and the boy's body revealed the injuries that proved his death was not accidental, but murder.

The prosecutor asked the jurors to think of their own experiences with children when considering how likely Pickering's explanations for the injuries were.

"Toddlers do not run around, fall over and get brain damage." In other words, they are meant to survive such mishaps.

"Toddlers do things like that all the time. They don't run around and bump into windows and come out with brain injuries," he said.

Pickering continued to deny her involvement in causing Dylan's injuries right up to the moment she was found guilty of murder.

Crying and dabbing her face - a box in the dock was full of used tissues she had cried into - she was led away saying, "They got it wrong" and "I didn't do it"