Vaila Sopo, a 26-year-old Samoan from Manurewa, Auckland was revealed to be the man who beat his eight-month-old daughter to death.

His identity was kept secret throughout the trial and sentencing but can now be revealed. Sopo was born in Samoa and hails from Savaii.

According to New Zealand media reports, the name suppression lapse means eight-month-old victim Falute Vaila can also be named for the first time since her death at a South Auckland medical clinic. Next week will mark the second anniversary of her death.

Jurors in the High Court at Auckland found the defendant guilty of murder in March after watching a police interview in which the man admitted through a translator: “I’ve sinned. I murdered my daughter”. His lawyers had argued he didn’t know the proper legal definition of murder and he was instead guilty of manslaughter.

He also admitted to police he turned his aggression on the eight-month-old because she looked as if she was afraid of him.

According to the New Zealand Herald, Justice Laura O’Gorman ordered a life sentence for Sopo last month with a stipulation he serves at least 17 years before he can begin to apply for parole.

The defendant’s name - and, as a result, his daughter’s name - had been initially suppressed until the verdict due to an earlier finding of extreme hardship for the defendant’s overseas parents, who told the court in 2022 that they feared they would be banished from their small Pacific village and possibly have their house burnt down if neighbours found out about the charges.

Immediately after that suppression order lapsed with the guilty verdict, Justice O’Gorman allowed a new temporary suppression order based on an unrelated issue: to protect the defendant’s fair trial rights in Manukau District Court, where he was awaiting domestic violence charges. In light of the more serious murder conviction, however, prosecutors opted last month to withdraw the District Court allegations.

That should have allowed the defendant to be named at sentencing, but his lawyers filed a new last-minute permanent name suppression request based entirely on the original application: the alleged continuing extreme hardship for his overseas parents. The judge denied the request but gave the defence time to consider whether they would appeal. They have opted not to.

Falute died on May 23, 2022, shortly after her mother took her to Watford Medical Centre in Ōtara, South Auckland.

The defendant denied hurting his daughter while speaking to police on the night of her death. But in an hours-long follow-up police interview a week later, he admitted to slapping his daughter’s legs and hands out of anger because she had cried when he went into the room where she was sleeping. The two had never bonded and she acted cold towards him, he explained.

As the interview progressed, he admitted to pushing the baby’s stomach then eventually – after police showed him an autopsy photo of his daughter and read aloud her long list of injuries – admitted to punching his daughter four times with an estimated force of seven out of 10.

A demonstration of the blows appeared to show enough force to easily hurt an adult, with him putting his back into the pantomimed strikes.

The final blow, as he braced the infant’s head with one hand and punched with the other, perforated the child’s bowel. Left untreated, with only the defendant aware of what had occurred, the internal injury became fatal over the course of several days.