A forensic pathologist has described in court the injuries found on the body of Kerikeri schoolgirl Liberty Templeman at the trial of a 16-year-old boy accused of her murder.
The bruised, semi-naked body of Miss Templeman was found face-down in a stream in an abandoned orchard on 1 November 2008, a day after the 15-year-old disappeared.
The Crown says the 16-year-old has admitted to police that he hit, choked and dragged an unconscious Miss Templeman to the stream. He denies the murder charge.
Miss Templeman's parents left the courtroom as details emerged in the High Court in Whangarei on Monday of injuries suffered by their daughter before she died.
A pathologist who carried out the post-mortem, Timothy Koelmeyer, told the court that the cause of death was undoubtedly drowning.
However, he said there were bruises on both sides of Miss Templeman's head and face consistent with blows from a hand or fist, which would have been hard enough to knock her out.
Dr Koelmeyer said that, in his opinion, Miss Templeman had sustained five or six blows to her head and had been dragged on her back unconscious to the water.
Scratches on Miss Templeman's back were drag marks showing that her body had been pulled by the shoulders across a rough surface, the court was told.
