by Cassandra Morgan, AAP
A young man who savagely bashed his mother and hid out with her dead body will forever be haunted by the knowledge he neglected to call triple zero and potentially save her life, his barrister suggests.
Tia Minhinnick is facing significant jail time after he admitted murdering his mother, 41-year-old Angela Huata, in a brutal beating at their home at Springvale in February 2022.
Minhinnick, who was aged 20 at the time, had a “highly conflictual” relationship with his mother in the lead-up to the attack, which was prompted by his belief she was mistreating his baby sister, the Supreme Court of Victoria was told on Monday.
He was drunk and on drugs on the night of February 9 when his housemates arrived home before midnight to find him standing over and yelling at his mother, who was sitting on the lounge room floor bleeding.
Minhinnick threatened his housemates, who went to their rooms, and was heard on a neighbour’s audio recording yelling, “get the f*** up” as he continued his assault.
At some point, Minhinnick shifted his assault of Ms Huata from the lounge room to the garage, where he eventually put Band-Aids over lacerations on her nose and chin.
He wrapped a bandage around her head and, just before 1.30am, messaged his girlfriend Natalie Jensen, saying: “I think I might of went too far”.
Minhinnick’s barrister Tim Marsh said his client should have called triple zero but didn’t, and that was “a consequence he will have to live with for the rest of his life”.
“This is a young man who did realise the horror of what he’d done and – albeit ineffectual – sought to remedy it,” Mr Marsh said.
It was unclear whether Ms Huata was still alive when she was taken back to the house and put in Minhinnick’s bed, prosecutor David Glynn said.
Jensen later came over and waited for Minhinnick’s housemates to leave in the morning as he remained in a bedroom with his mother’s dead body, asking why they were taking so long to go.
“I have to jump the back fence,” Minhinnick wrote in a message to Jensen.
Jensen phoned police about 12.15pm on February 10, lying and saying she’d just arrived at the house before performing CPR on Ms Huata.
Police found blood on the kitchen floor and walls, in the garage, and on a washing machine and fridge.
Ms Huata – who had been stripped naked and was declared dead at the scene – had 29 separate rib fractures, burst eardrums, a laceration to her liver and a brain injury among other injuries.
Some of her bruises were sustained before the fatal assault, the court was told.
Ms Huata’s mother said she couldn’t open her daughter’s coffin when her body arrived in New Zealand because of the extent of her injuries.
“On February the 10th, at 11.32am, I heard this voice in my head and it was Angela calling out to me – she just went, ‘mum’,” she said in a victim impact statement.
“You tortured your mother. It was horrible. Angela was my oldest daughter. All I wanted to do was hold her and hug her.”
Mr Marsh said his client’s life was marred by violence, sporadic work and schooling, substance abuse, homelessness and mental health issues including complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Minhinnick’s belief his mother was mistreating his sister led to a cascade of traumas before the attack, Mr Marsh said.
Mr Glynn described the beating as “sustained and savage”.
Judge Richard Niall will sentence Minhinnick at a later date.
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