Two support agencies are divided over what was said in meetings with the woman who's admitted killing three year-old Moko Rangitoheriri.
Both Child Youth and Family and Women's Refuge were in contact with Tania Shailer in the weeks before Moko's death.
Moko's killers will be sentenced next month, but the search for accountability goes on.
His mother, Nicola Dally-Paki, feels "let down" by agencies she says could have saved her son's life.
"My son could be recovering right now; he wouldn't be six feet under," she says. "They knew something was up. Why didn't they help?"
Women's Refuge is on the defensive about its role. The allegation is that sometime in July last year, Moko's sister told a social worker from Women's Refuge Moko was being abused by Shailer. Shailer refuted the allegation. A month later, Moko was dead.
"They could have helped my son," says Ms Dally-Paki. "He might have been veggie now, but he'd still be alive."
The Women's Refuge in question is Te Whare Oranga Wairua Maori Women's Refuge in Taupo, and the information was revealed by its manager in an interview with Fairfax.
The refuge told Newshub late today the manager was unprepared and got it wrong, and the national office backed that with a statement, saying: "We had not heard any direct allegation from a child that an adult had physically hurt Moko or any other children".
Questions have also been raised about Child Youth and Family, who met with Shailer and Women's Refuge on July 30. Women's Refuge claims Shailer sought help with the children, but Child Youth and Family says it has no record of this.
The public message around child abuse has always been to "speak up", but none of the agencies approached by Newshub today would sit down for an interview, preferring not to talk about it.
Newshub.
