Death from traumatic brain injury

Police investigating the death of a six-month-old baby girl in Ngaruawahia say she died from traumatic brain injury.

Serenity Jay Scott-Dinningham died last week in Auckland's Starship Hospital after her life support was turned off. Police say the injuries she received were not accidental.

Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Greene said provisional post mortem results showed Serenity had died from brain injuries described as traumatic.

"I would stress at this stage that the post mortem results are only provisional, but they give us some idea as to what sort of injuries she suffered during what was obviously a very violent death," Mr Greene said.

The investigation into how Serenity died continues today, with police speaking to family and neighbours. Door-to-door inquiries in the area had proven beneficial, with many people providing police with useful information.

Mr Greene said while the general response from the public had been good, police were still keen to get more information about how Serenity died.

"To help this process we have set up an 0800 number for people to ring if they have any information that could help us in our investigation. Someone must know how this child died and we are appealing to those people to come forward and talk to us.

"Any information, no matter how small or insignificant, may be of use to us," Mr Greene said.

Anyone with information about Serenity's death can ring 0800 YOUR HELP (0800 9687 4357).