10 years 'not enough' for bashing 3yo to death
June 11, 2008 - 9:32AM
Source: ABC
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Timothy Farmer pleaded guilty to manslaughter. |
An Albany family has expressed anger at the 10-year jail term imposed on the man who bashed to death a three-and-a-half-year-old boy.
Timothy Farmer, 31, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the child, who suffered repeated beatings in the last two-and-a-half weeks of his life.
The Supreme Court was told he had bruising all over his body, extensive soft tissue injuries and damage to most of his internal organs.
Justice Eric Heenan described the crime as cruel, senseless, reprehensible and the worst of its kind.
After the sentence the boy's great aunt, Paulette Punch, said the jail term was not enough.
"It's not fair, no it's not fair, this little boy hasn't even got a chance to live," she said.
Farmer's mother Maureen said she stands by her son.
"I know my son did wrong but I'm his mother and I'll stand by him for the rest of my life until I die because he's my son and I know he didn't do this on purpose," she said.
10 years jail for toddler death
- Andrea Hayward
- June 10, 2008 - 2:16PM
A man jailed for ten years today for the manslaughter of a three-year-old boy started beating the toddler soon after he started a relationship with the boy's mother.
Timothy Leonard Farmer, 30, of Albany was sentenced in the Supreme Court today for the manslaughter of Mason Coughlan.
Farmer was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison. That sentence was reduced by a third under the State's truth-in-sentencing laws, and was further reduced to 10 years to take Farmer's early guilty plea into account.
Farmer pleaded guilty to manslaughter in February after the charge was downgraded from murder.
Farmer carried the dead boy into the Albany Hospital on October 30, 2006 where he told staff "he pissed the bed and got a smack and was put in the shower".
He claimed Mason had fallen or had a turn.
Justice Eric Heenan said the events which led to Mason's death presented an agonising picture of violence, cruelty and insensitivity towards a young, helpless and terrified child.
Farmer had been drinking with friends before beating the child with a hose because he wet his pants on the night he died, the court was told.
"His mother went in and found you with the boy across a chair, on his stomach and hitting him really hard on his buttocks," Justice Heenan said.
"You were using a hose to hit the boy, who was screaming.
"His mother tried to get the child out of the shower but you blocked her way and picked up the young boy. This is when his mother noticed that he was not breathing."
Farmer had been in a relationship with Mason's mother for two months before the boy died, Justice Heenan said.
"Although the relationship between Farmer and his partner and her children seemed to be satisfactory enough at first, it was not long before you began beating the young child, Mason, ostensibly for correction or discipline," he said.
"This began about two weeks or more before Mason's death. The beatings got steadily worse and more severe."
Just days before Mason died, Farmer had revived the child after another severe beating.
"The child was hyperventilating and his mother wanted to take him to hospital but you would not allow this, saying that the boy was fine," Justice Heenan said.
The post-mortem examination of the toddler showed there was almost no part of his body without extreme bruising and multiple abrasions.
Farmer was also sentenced to one year in jail for assault occasioning bodily harm, over a separate incident.
He will be eligible for parole on both convictions.