Jan Moorhead was a workaholic grader driver who lived in a big house with his wife and two daughters. He did not go to church much. He liked a solid meal of meat and three veg.

But when his marriage failed he met Deborah Murray and over several years his life was transformed.

They married and moved into a small cottage. He became a vegan and found God.

But their faith was a strict one. They were part of a radical fringe of the Dargaville Seventh-day Adventist Church.

When their boy Caleb was born, he was the light of their life. But yesterday, they were found guilty of his death.

Caleb, born healthy, became sick from vitamin B12 deficiency due to his mother's strict diet - no meat, fish or dairy products.

As his condition worsened, his parents took him to hospital but removed him, putting their faith in god and prayer, rather than doctors.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, a jury took just over three hours to find the Moorheads guilty of failing in their duty as parents to provide him with the necessaries of life.

Continuing bail was denied and they were remanded in custody for sentencing.

Each day during the case, they clutched bibles.

The verdict capped a difficult case, one which had left doctors frustrated after the Moorheads took Caleb out of hospital and went into hiding.

Starship paediatrician Dr Patrick Kelly said doctors were concerned that other babies born to vegan parents could be at risk from vitamin B12 deficiency, a vital chemical for the development of children.

After dealing with the Moorhead case, he had learned of three other cases in Wellington and one in Hastings, and another case had come into his hospital.

Other developments in the case which have emerged include:

The couple's church, the Seventh-day Adventist, distanced itself from their "extreme" lifestyle and belief that only God - not medicine - could have saved Caleb

• the Moorheads wrote to police before the trial saying they did not want a lawyer and that "God is in total control of the outcome"

• police reveal that when Caleb died, they were within days of tracking down the Moorheads when they were on the run

  Yesterday Jan Moorhead's first wife and his father Trevor spoke about his life and how it changed remarkably after he met Deborah Murray.

  Moorhead, now 45, attended Northland College in Kaikohe. His mother, who died two years ago, took him to church as a youngster, but as an adult he hardly ever went.

  He eventually took over his father's earthworks contracting business in Dargaville.

  He married his first wife - also called Deborah - and they were married for 15 years. Now remarried as Deborah Downey, she said her former husband had changed.

  Mrs Downey said he worked seven days a week and would eat meals such as meat and three vegetables.

  They separated several years ago.

  Jan Moorhead stayed in the couple's large home set on a lifestyle block along a gravel road and dated a few times, settling on Deborah Murray, a Seventh-day Adventist.

  She had also been married but split from her husband in Auckland, moving back in Dargaville where she had grown up and went to school. She drove into town in a housebus with her two young daughters.

  She met Moorhead after she took her bus to him for repairs and locals told of later seeing the vehicle permanently parked outside Moorhead's home. Nearly four years ago they married.

  After a trip to the United States, the couple's beliefs became really intense, Mrs Downey said.

  Jan's father, Trevor Moorhead, who used to live next door, also noticed a number of changes. The biggest was that his son had become withdrawn and hard to talk to.

  He cut his hair short, and the man that loved to cook only ate food like fruit and vegetables grown in his garden, and had lost a lot of weight.

  The couple had became strict vegans.

  Caleb was born on September 3 2000, but Mrs Moorhead's vegan diet meant the infant did not get enough vitamin B12.

  His parents took him to Starship but against the advice of doctors and nurses, took him away and went into hiding.

  The officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Chris Scahill, said outside court yesterday that the Child, Youth and Family agency had obtained a warrant from the Family Court for taking Caleb from the Moorheads, backed by police.

  Police tracked them to the Bombay area south of Auckland, identifying a cellphone tower.

  "It encompassed a good 2000 houses. So the logistics of trying a house to house search was going to be difficult. But before we could even embark on that course of action Caleb died."

  Mr Scahill said the couple were motivated by their religious beliefs and were part of a fringe group of their church.

  "My feeling is that these religious beliefs have blinded them to the realities of the situation they were in. Their strong religious beliefs coupled with their very strict vegan diet, that combination certainly produced the situation that they find themselves in," he said.

  "I also think that they self-educated themselves on the diet thing. They had a little bit of knowledge on the medical side of things. But I think they overestimated the knowledge they had."

  The Moorheads wrote to police, saying their fate was up to God.

  Mr Scahill said the couple did not want to intentionally sacrifice their son.

  "They were more from the point of view that they did not want Caleb to die. However he did die. And their conclusion to that was that it must have been God's will for that to happen."

  Immediately after the verdict, the Seventh-day Adventist Church moved to distance itself from what the Moorheads did and their lifestyle.

  "These people are certainly following a lifestyle not in harmony with the mainstream Christian church. That's probably the easiest way of me saying it: they're not part of our mainstream church," the church's North New Zealand Conference president, Pastor Jerry Matthews, said.

  Mrs Moorhead was a member of the church but her husband was not. It was unclear how long she had belonged. There are 77 members of the Dargaville SDA church and 12,000 nationwide.

  But Mr Matthews said the details of the case had surprised the local church.

  Mr Matthews said he believed the Moorheads led an extreme lifestyle branch of the local membership which comprised one or two other couples, who were believed to be vegans.

  The church, he said, was active in modern medicine and what the Moorheads did to their son "just really flies in the face of our whole emphasis on shall we say helping people live a healthier lifestyle and disease prevention".

  He was not aware if any other church members held the same views as the Moorheads over a child's right to medical treatment.

  Mr Matthews said it was up to the Dargaville membership to decide whether Mrs Moorhead remained a member.

  "Knowing the church community... I would say they will certainly support her as a person. They certainly can't condone what she has done but they would certainly think she would need to be loved and cared for..."