The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a landmark case is being brought in New England, where a landowner is being charged with manslaughter after a toddler from a neighbouring house wandered into his yard, got through the unmaintained fence and drowned.
Mr Cameron [the pool owner] was inside his Armidale home watching television one afternoon this year when the boy wandered through his backyard and fell in the pool.
Mr Cameron’s unkempt pool, described by one neighbour as ”a bit of a cesspit”, had a fence around it that was dilapidated.
After a two-month investigation, police charged Mr Cameron with manslaughter on Tuesday evening and ordered him to appear in an Armidale court next month. He is believed to be the first pool owner to be charged with manslaughter for not having a proper fence.
Katherine Plint, a campaigner on child drowning prevention, said it was a ”massive decision”. ”It sets a legal precedent which is what we want. Councils need to enforce laws and those owners refusing to fix their pools need to be prosecuted,” said Ms Plint, founder of the advocacy group Hannah’s Foundation.
The decision has the potential to affect tens of thousands of home owners, with a recent report by the Royal Life Saving Society finding that up to 85 per cent of home pools in some areas do not meet safety standards.
Detective Inspector Greig Stier from New England police said they were not looking to set a precedent or ”make this poor man an example”.
”We believe he’s committed an offence by not adequately fencing the pool as he’s required to do by law,” he said. ”We’ll allege the fence was there but not in a state that would stop people getting in.”
The toddler, his parents’ only child, was playing with his mother in their front yard about 4pm on May 14 when he wandered off.
Ms Plint, who has been involved in the investigation, said the mother looked away for ”a matter of seconds” to talk to a neighbour.
Pool owners are required by law to erect and maintain adequate fencing.
Neighbours had apparently complained about Mr Cameron’s fence. However, the general manager of Armidale Dumaresq Council, Shane Burns, said a formal complaint was never received so the council was never obliged to check the fence. They were only required to when the pool was built.
This would be an instance of involuntary manslaughter: in other words the actions (or inactions) of the defendant killed another person without an intention to do so.
She frantically searched for the boy but a neighbour found him in Mr Cameron’s pool.
Presumably it will be alleged that this is an instance of manslaughter by criminal negligence, which requires the prosecution to prove that the accused’s omission causing death involved a departure from the standard of care to be expected from a reasonable person to the extent that it should be called a crime against the community generally, and thus conduct deserving punishment.
It is fruitful to think about what the situation would be in the civil arena. The difficulty with occupier’s liability in negligence is that it invariably involves an omission, or a failure to meet certain standards, rather than a positive action. In a sense, defendant occupiers are the most passive defendants in negligence generally. The law used to distinguish between different classes of entrants to property (invitees, licensees and trespassers) and the standard of care applying to each differed (so, for example, you’d have a higher standard of care towards someone you invited on to your property than you would to a trespasser whom you did not invite or even want on the property). The High Court erased those categories in Australian Safeway Stores Pty Ltd v Zaluzna (1987) 162 CLR 479 and held that general principles of negligence applied to occupiers of land (although in Victoria, at least, the categories had already been abolished by Part IIA of the Wrongs Act, which still governs the law with regard to state of the premises).
Section 14B of the Wrongs Act sets out the duty of occupiers. For present purposes, sub-s (3) and (4) are relevant to get a feeling as to what courts think is reasonable conduct on the part of an occupier:
(3) An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that any person on the premises will not be injured or damaged by reason of the state of the premises or of things done or omitted to be done in relation to the state of the premises.
(4) Without restricting the generality of subsection (3), in determining whether the duty of care under subsection (3) has been discharged consideration shall be given to-
(a) the gravity and likelihood of the probable injury;
(b) the circumstances of the entry onto the premises;
(c) the nature of the premises;
(d) the knowledge which the occupier has or ought to have of the likelihood of persons or property being on the premises;
(e) the age of the person entering the premises;
(f) the ability of the person entering the premises to appreciate the danger;
(fa) whether the person entering the premises is intoxicated by alcohol or drugs voluntarily consumed and the level of intoxication;
(fb) whether the person entering the premises is engaged in an illegal activity;
(g) the burden on the occupier of eliminating the danger or protecting the person entering the premises from the danger as compared to the risk of the danger to the person.
This incident took place in NSW and the NSW Civil Liability Act 2002 does not seem to have an equivalent provision, but I set out the Victorian provision so that you can see in short compass the kinds of factors which are relevant (under both common law and statute).
With the caveat that I do not have the full benefit of all the facts in this case, if this case had been brought in negligence under a civil standard, I can hazard a guess that that on the balance of probabilities, the occupier may well be liable because of the clear required standard of pool fencing, the fact that standard appears not to have been met, the fact that the entrant to the property was a small child who had no idea of the risk to himself and the gravity of the injury suffered (as grave as one can get). This would be balanced against the fact that the occupier would not have known that the toddler was on the premises.
But negligence according to the civil standard is quite different to saying that someone is criminally negligent such that they should be held guilty of the crime of manslaughter. Is this negligence of a level which should be held to be a crime to the community in general?
What do people think? Should the landowner be charged with manslaughter? And does it open a whole can of worms as to who should take responsibility for such a death? The poll attached to the article presently discloses that 3% of respondents think that the safety of small children around pools is the landowner’s responsibility alone, 57% of respondents think that it is the responsibility of the child’s parents alone, and 40% think that it is the responsibility of both, although the poll is still open for a while.
Personally, I feel hideously sorry for the child’s mother and I am sure she will never forgive herself for the rest of her life. If you don’t have kids (or your kids are grown up?) perhaps it’s easy to stand in judgement; but as a parent with young children, I know how very easy it is to take your eye off them for just a second, and they dash away. But the majority of respondents to the survey (which is admittedly an unscientific one) seem to see it as a parent’s responsibility, not that of the landowner, nor a joint responsibility. I wonder if the case will open her up to criticism? I also feel very sorry for the occupier – I am sure that this will haunt him for the rest of his life, regardless of whether he is convicted or not.
Update:
Marcellous has pointed out that that the occupier’s duty to fence the pool is already established by s 7 of the Swimming Pools Act 1992 (NSW), which provides that:
(1) The owner of the premises on which a swimming pool is situated must ensure that the swimming pool is at all times surrounded by a child-resistant barrier:
(a) that separates the swimming pool from any residential building situated on the premises and from any place (whether public or private) adjoining the premises, and
(b) that is designed, constructed, installed and maintained in accordance with the standards prescribed by the regulations.
Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units.…
He points out that there is already a criminal provision for a failure to have a fence according to the Act. He says:
I feel sorry for the person facing this charge, and it may also be that a jury will and decline to convict because manslaughter seems such a terrible thing (though this is actually a bit misleading – see below). Offences such as culpable driving causing death were introduced because of the historical reluctance of juries to convict for manslaughter when caused by a motor vehicle. Part of that was because juries might not wish to expose a motorist to the range of sentencing discretions for manslaughter. There have been various sophistications of offences since then, giving range to arguments such as those ventilated in the recent High Court case of King v The Queen – see here for a hook into that.
In the absence of such specific offences for swimming pool fences, it remains the case that manslaughter covers a very wide range of criminality. The crucial difference between murder and manslaughter is that manslaughter has a much wider sentencing range and discretion. Further, if this man is convicted of manslaughter, the sentence he will face will be much less than the sentence that, for example, those “just-short-of-murder” manslaughter offenders face.
See here for the NSW Public Defender’s guide to sentences for manslaughter by criminal negligence in NSW.
Indeed, I was thinking of culpable driving offences when I wrote the post as an analogous kind of thing, although an occupier who fails to maintain premises is still more passive. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with this one.
63 Comments
massively sympathetic to mother, but if I was Defending Landowner I would ask why her property did not also have fully maintained fencing to keep child safe.
followed SMH link to see who brought the action but I got a 404.
An unobserved toddler can drown in a street puddle and parent has no chance of successfully charging the Council.
another Defence argument re the pool fence law not being met is that the law itself is a Logic fail re all the many public bodies of unfenced water where parents are expected to be vigilant – public rivers lakes and fountains etc. the Trevi, the moat at the Melbourne National Gallery is huge and deep and easy to climb or fall into, the Yarra, the Thames, etc.
Sad that one of the people is going to have to move away from the other to avoid daily reminder of the tragedy.
I too read this.
The thing is, the duty to fence the pool is already established by a specific law – section 7 of the Swimming Pools Act 1992.
That section establishes an offence if the fence is not maintained, with a maximum penalty of 50 penalty points. (I think that a penalty point is still $110.) It’s an offence that may be dealt with summarily a well as by penalty notice.
That seems to me to be a fairly straightforward public safety offence [no pun intended] – a bit like keeping firearms sufficiently secure. Similar issues arise in households where children get hold of unsecured guns and play with them and injure or kill themselves. Obviously, drowning is precisely the risk that the swimming pool act is aimed against – nobody is worried just about children getting wet. And in particular it seems to me that the risk which the law is guarded against is drowning as a result of children, unobserved, getting into the pool. If they were being observed, an adult could usually fish them out after all.
I feel sorry for the person facing this charge, and it may also be that a jury will and decline to convict because manslaughter seems such a terrible thing (though this is actually a bit misleading – see below). Offences such as culpable driving causing death were introduced because of the historical reluctance of juries to convict for manslaughter when caused by a motor vehicle. Part of that was because juries might not wish to expose a motorist to the range of sentencing discretions for manslaughter. There have been various sophistications of offences since then, giving range to arguments such as those ventilated in the recent High Court case of King v The Queen – see here for a hook into that.
In the absence of such specific offences for swimming pool fences, it remains the case that manslaughter covers a very wide range of criminality. The crucial difference between murder and manslaughter is that manslaughter has a much wider sentencing range and discretion. Further, if this man is convicted of manslaughter, the sentence he will face will be much less than the sentence that, for example, those “just-short-of-murder” manslaughter offenders face.
See here for the NSW Public Defender’s guide to sentences for manslaughter by criminal negligence in NSW.
Thanks heaps Marcellous, that’s very helpful and I have added it to the post.
The mother of the toddler appears to have contributed to the negligence, as the duty of care for monitoring her toddler’s every move rested with her.
Rayvic, that’s why I think the action might open a can of worms for the parents…I think many (most) people would agree with you. If it’s a jury trial this will be reflected in the verdict.
Yes, but the mother’s inattention in this case is unlikely to amount to criminal negligence. In the link I gave before you will see that a mother has been charged with manslaughter for neglect of her child leading to that child’s death – but it was a much more sustained history of neglect than mere momentary inattention and even then she received a suspended sentence.
Manslaughter is a very peculiar offence, because it encompasses such a wide of actions resulting in death: its place in the criminal calendar seems to be to vindicate respect for human life.
If there were a jury trial and an acquittal I wouldn’t see that as somehow conversely a condemnation of the mother. I would just see it as an exercise of the jury’s prerogative to acquit. After all, the law as it exists already presupposes that children will stray undetected by their parents.
Marcellous, I was more thinking of any cross-examination she might have to face at trial. Mind you, I’m not a criminal lawyer, so I don’t know how the tactics would play out – I’m just a pessimist on matters like this.
Just down the way from me, on a five acre block sits a big house with a spanking new pool – properly fenced. I’ve no doubt it was inspected by the council, as required, but it sits in the same paddock, and no more than 30 metres from the dam used by the two family ponies. Unfenced, of course.
And then there’s this reported at lunchtime. Irrigation ditch, parents ‘lost track for only a moment’.
None of this is solved after the event. No doubt the fellow in LE’s case should be prosecuted for his inadequate pool fence, but I do wonder how much further you can take it after that.
kvd@9 on pool v dam.
Swimming pools have vertical sides, and are difficult to get into, dams on farms usually have very gentle gradients, easy for lambs and calves to get in and out of (and presumably toddlers). One can usually walk or crawl out of a dam on a farm, not a pool.
Very true Dave. Plus I guess a sparkly blue pool is much more attractive than a brown, muddy dam. It’s just the close proximity of the two on this local property that makes me think about it.
The only time I came across dams as a kid, they were quite dangerous – went down quite steeply at the sides, had opaque muddy brown water (in which we fondly imagined there were HEAPS of yabbies lurking, and attempted to catch yabbies unsuccessfully) and the ground was really clay-ey and sticky. Probably depends on the dam?
Possibly it’s a good thing we never caught the yabbies. My husband grew up in the country and he caught a heap of yabbies and put them in the fish tank. By the end of the week, there was only one UBER-YABBY left – it apparently devoured all the other yabbies.
I expect any trial will be about the state of the pool fence and what the defendant might or might not have known about it or done about it. I don’t see much upside for the defence in attacking the mother at all. It doesn’t take long for a small child to drown in a pool. Anyway, there will be evidence about that, too, no doubt.
A tragedy for all concerned. Ironic to note that reports in online Oz today tell of another toddler/child, playing on rural property with others, drowning in drainage way or dam. Police express profound sympathy over tragic accident.
Accident. Parental supervision. Accident.
I must admit the thought of liability for omissions – unless, of course, one is a professional rescuer — makes me uncomfortable. I can see why we are moving in that direction, and a case like this is fraught with complexities (admirably outlined by comments above), but I still have a basic sense that one ought to have done something, first.
It’s a little odd about farms … somehow there seems to be a lot of Darwinian pressure allowed. While I wasn’t a /toddler/, either pre-school or very early primary I’d be allowed to go out and play in the shearing sheds, with the various bits of farming equipment, and as for wet things you could drown in … pools and dams are for wimps … full-of-nasty-chemicals sheep dip was what I’d been told not to swim in. (No … might /look/ like a small swimming pool, might be temptingly near the little sheepdog-trial practice bridges that I’d be playing on, but spend time on a farm as a toddler, and by pre-school you know what “DEAD” means). The only real trouble I’d get into was the damn geese coming around a corner I didn’t expect. Bugger fencing pools and sheep dip – fence those damn geese – lethal evil things.
Seconded. Was once treed by geese in my early teens, spent half an hour screaming for help with black and blue legs. Though as it turned out, that was NOTHING. I was mugged by a Cassowary later in the same trip to North QLD who chased me round a picnic table after my chocolate paddlepop (survival tip: don’t try to get between me and chocolate – lucky for the bird it was wearing a helmet.)
Oh I hate geese too. Evil evil beasts.
My family and I once got chased around a picnic table by a troop of hungry emus, all booming. It was horrid, but I think a cassowary would be scarier.
Bloody Honkies. Mafia of the farmyard. Watch them corner 1 defenceless chook and torture it to death. Horrible.
Henry, that’s freaking awful. Just confirms my anti-goose prejudice in spades.
Mental image of joining a few comment threads … like something out of the film “Aliens” …
A whole lot of financiers chained to a wall with looking at a whole lot of goose eggs starting to hatch.
(Oh … problem with that, the financiers are the dangerous parasites)
Is there no law in NSW for a mother to take care of her 2 year old toddler. No one knows how long the child was actually missing. People have a right to their own home and want no intruders including children. Police say mum no neglient so it is safe to let a 2 year old roam alone anywhere. Who is mothers connection to get charge laid.
Were I on the jury, there’d be no hope of a conviction, even if I had to keep the other 11 there for 3 months in lockdown.
If mum lost track of the kid for long enough that it wandered next door, & got into a pool, then what other trouble could it have got into?
Interestingly, there is no mention of the actual state of the pool fence, just that it doesn’t meet some pundu’s idea of what a pool fence should be.
wondeirng, you obviously have never had care of an active toddler. Man, they can disappear quickly; it really does take just a minute (literally) while you’re doing something else. And there’d be plenty of time for a kid to drown before you found them again.
More pertinent is whether the mum’s property was properly set up for an active toddler (ie fenced with a shut gate), But we should wait for the trial to find out if that was an issue.
DD totally agree. Your back is turned for a second because someone calls on the phone or because someone talks to you… and they’re off. Even if you’re the most watchful and neurotic mother in the world it can happen.
We don’t have a fence around our front yard, and even though we live in a cul de sac, I don’t take my eye off them for a minute. Want to get it fenced, but it’s expensive when you’re on a corner…
I’ve lost to kids when i was supposed to be supervising them. Two kids from different family friends.
One kid I lost was in central park in a playground right next to 5th ave. We found the kid wondering down 5ht ave by himself.
Another time was at a mini version of a Disney park type thing. This was a real worry because the kid went missing for around an hour and apparently an hour is a sort of cut off when you need to be really worried.
I always had the concentration span of a gnat for this sort of stuff. However I did the right thing and warned the parents of my affliction.
On straying toddlers, watching a fairly distraught mother as a laughing toddler headed straight towards the lagoon in Venezia unable to catch up with her because she could not let go of even younger toddler brother brought that home to me. Fortunately, the young girl then proceeded to circle around in a much safer direction.
I went to the zoo with a friend of mine who had five boys (there’s now six – the sixth was the much desired girl) – gee it was hard keeping track of five little blonde boys who looked from the back like every other little blonde boy, plus my own two.
On avoidable tragedies, this is the report of the death of the 18 year old son of one of my favourite clients. I have known the family for over ten years now, and it was always a pleasure to visit them because they are such a close and loving family; the three children are a credit – the kind I would have been proud to present as my own.
Parenting never really stops; it’s just the dangers change in nature, and you cannot live their lives for them.
When I studied law, a long time ago, I was fascinated by the shades of seriousness between manslaughter and murder. As I remember it, murder could be an act without intentent to kill but done “with reckless indifference to human life”.
I don’t think I found a modern case where an act of extreme carelessness was found to amount to murder under this rule.
Are there frequent convictions for manslaughter in “negligence” cases?
KVD, are you having us on?
You call that an avoidable tragedy? It’s fucking murder. Cold blooded unprovoked murder and if we had the death penalty, as we should in these cases I would happily want to see the prick’s life ended with maximum prejudice.
This is no avoidable tragedy.
JC@31 there’s an ugliness in your response that I don’t share, and that I really hope doesn’t infect this family’s efforts to deal with this tragedy over the coming years. But deal they must, and although I’m not close enough to offer advice (and I have none), I’m just hoping there are steadier heads around them than yours.
On the contrary, KVD, there is an ugliness in your comment that revolts me and possibly other people that may not want to address it. I was so affronted by your comment I was taken aback and repulsed.
Are you really so devoid of human feeling that you diss the life of this victim by calling it an “avoidable tragedy”? Honestly, is any part of your brain that registers emotion and human feeling or has it all shut down?
It’s cold blooded murder! It’s not an avoidable tragedy. The kid was murdered in a random cold blooded attack. FFS
After looking at that report, I’m with JC.
Im sick that today we can rationalise the unprovaked attack and murder of a good quality young bloke like this.
I dont care if the attacker was ill, off his face or any other excuse. Hes a nutter and should be stopped before he does it again.
Ken N @ 30 – as I understand it, juries are reluctant to convict for negligent manslaughter. Consequently, this is why they have introduced industrial manslaughter provisions, dangerous driving provisions and the like.
Re 29, 31, 32, 33, 34: It seems to me that this is not the kind of tragedy which is avoidable because there’s nothing the parents or the poor lad could have done to guard against this possibility. How are you able to predict that some crazy person is going to come up and king hit your child in an unprovoked manner?
It’s only avoidable in the wider sense: if we had a better scheme for dealing with mentally ill people, if we had a better way of dealing with people on drugs, or if we had a better way of dealing with aggressive idiots out for a fight.
As for whether it’s murder: it will depend on the facts. I presume the alleged attacker was drunk, on drugs or mentally ill. The question will be the level of mental capacity. It is necessary for murder to have some notion that you meant to kill the other person, or you were reckless to the possibility that you might kill the other person.
The position with regard to intoxication is difficult. One of the elements of murder is an intention to kill, but the nature of intoxication (from drugs or alcohol) is that it tends to reduce one’s ability to form a proper intention. Consequently, its position in the law has always been controversial, and sometimes intoxication has acted to negative the mental element of murder at common law. This e-brief (pdf) by the NSW Parliament gives a good brief history. Section 428C of the Crimes Act states:
If the alleged attacker was mentally ill, he may be let off on the grounds of insanity, but this will mean that he will have to be in a mental facility for the rest of his life.
LE@36 needless to say, I disagree with you. “Avoidable” in plain English means ‘capable of being avoided or prevented’. And I expect with a kid six months out of school, living with his dad during the week, and home most weekends, his parents will now be questioning their judgement in letting him loose.
Not helped in the least by noted criminal lawyer Chris Murphy this morning being quoted as saying that he wouldn’t let his kid/s go anywhere near the Cross. Nor by any pointless gung ho rhetoric about retribution.
LE:
I think you have to be reckless to the probability of death rather than the possibility.
See Crabbe (the fellow who drove his prime mover into the bar at the [then] Ayers Rock motel after closing time after he had been ordered to leave earlier in the night.
In NSW there is the additional quirk, if you like, that whereas an actual intention to inflict grievous bodily harm on some person (not necessarily, incidentally, the person who was killed) is a sufficient mental element, the “reckless” element required by section 18 of the Crimes Act is a “reckless indifference to human life.”
See the discussion in Lavender, which was a conviction for manslaughter by criminal negligence involving a front-end-loader and a child.
“King hit” cases are almost always dealt with as manslaughter. – eg, the security guard who was acquitted in relation to David Hookes a few years ago.
The problem here is likely to be apprehending the perpetrator, so it may all be pretty academic.
KVD, I’m sure the poor parents will be questioning their decision for the rest of their lives. But I wouldn’t say that it was their “fault” in any sense, and it’s also understandable that parents want to give leeway to their kids. When I was in my late teens/early twenties I went to a variety of places which were dodgy, although naturally I was always careful. I don’t think that was a bad decision on my parents’ part, nor do I think my parents would have prevented me from doing these things had they told me not to go. I just would have done it without telling them where I was (which is surely more dangerous).
Marcellous – as you can tell my criminal law is seriously rusty. I do remember that Crabbe case from criminal law class, though.
I wonder if they will apprehend the perpetrator.
I’m sure they will, however it doesn’t remove the fact the kid was murdered in cold blood in what appears to be a random attack, which you delightfully refer to as an “avoidable tragedy”.
Chris would certainly know how unsafe it is seeing he’s possibly helped a number of hoods and thugs walk free, so i would take his word for it. Nothing wrong with what he does, but we also shouldn’t be blind to what he day job is.
It’s not pointless at all. If you stopped and considered what you referred to as an avoidable tragedy you’d know.
I did the first of two criminal law subject last semester and I did think manslaughter could be split into a number of offences. For the most part I think a distinction needs to be made between death caused by legitimate conduct done negligently (e.g. owning a pool, but failing to maintain the fence) and illegitimate conduct that shouldn’t have been done in the first place (e.g. punching someone in the head, armed robbery, etc). I would feel that the later fits more with the common perception of manslaughter while the former might be better described as ‘negligence causing death’.
JC@40 even though I only sometimes agree with your thoughts, I always find it quite easy to understand what you are saying.
Bearing in mind neither of us are lawyers, and that my default position is plain English, I am at a loss as to why you take such exception to my phrase “avoidable tragedy”. It shouldn’t be hard to parse because it’s only two words, seven syllables. I make the only possible options as follows:
1 avoidable tragedy [i.e. my objectionable phrase]
2. not avoidable tragedy
3. avoidable, not a tragedy
4. not avoidable , not a tragedy
Now you object to 1), so I’m asking if you think this was 2) inevitable 3) not tragic 4) inevitable, and not tragic?
You keep saying murder, but I doubt that charge would stick from the lawyers’ comments above – more’s the pity. Anyway 2,3,4 – which is it, just so I can understand how your logic works?
Because it sort of attempts to sterilize the brutality of what happened to that kid and avoid talking about the fucking coward who did this. It ought to raise a certain degree of anger that a young kid would be murdered in this most cowardly way. “Avoidable tragedy” doesn’t. An avoidable tragedy is a silly kid putting a car into a tree and a dying as a result of reckless driving.
The in house lawyers can debate it all they like, however in a fair place like say Texas the brutal bastard who did this would be likely end up on death row, as he should
And yes, retribution is part of the justice system.
Because the best response to one tragedy is to create another…
JC, retribution is most certainly an important part of the justice system. However, I see the retribution that the state metes out as being considered retribution – not the kind of lynch mob justice which an enraged family might be tempted to exact (and by god I’d be tempted if it were my kid).
What tragedy is that, Desi- a kid getting sucker punched by a coward and ends up dying?
That’s a tragedy, is it?
Yea LE, I hear you. I really feel for the family. They’ve been on TV a few times and I think they’re absolutely anguished by the murder…. almost like they’ve lost their bearings and still coming to terms with it. Just painful to watch.
Same thing happened to a kid of a friend’s friends. You may recall the incident from a few years back and the kid is a vegetable. Just a random unprovoked attack.
I would consider anyone dying and therefore being denied the opportunity to live a happy and prosperous life to be a tragedy.
And in this case you should also add he was murdered by a cowardly gutless turd who deserves far more than a long spell in prison.
Given we only have one side of the story and know nothing about the background of the individual or what motivated them to strike it’s a little premature to be making judgements about what the attacker does or does not deserve.
Not true. We have witnesses that were with the murdered young man who said it was an unprovoked attack and that neither the murdered victim nor they knew the attacker. There is also CCTV footage of the victim showing him to be on a cell phone at the time.
If you want to dispute any of this, go right ahead.
Leave it alone desipis. JC is the font of all wisdom; a sort of comic sans sherrif.
Why thanks KVD.
When I grow up I want to be like you two. I’m going to start referring to murders as avoidable accidents. It kind makes me feel all good inside writing that.
kvd, yes, I think I’ll have to face the fact that JC will just continue to emphasise the bold assertions that underline his tough-guy character.
Funny old world when referring to a murder incident as “murder” instead of “accidental avoidable tragedy that affects us all in a small way”, is seen as tough guy image. But there you go, Desi.
With regarrds to the manslaughter charge on the pool owner, I would like to know what is the difference between Manslaughter” and “Negligence causing death”?
JLM, there are essentially two kinds of manslaughter (as I understand it).
(1) cases which are close to murder but because of some incapacity or lack of provable intention on the part of the perpetrator, are then downgraded to manslaughter.
(2) cases which involve gross negligence (including negligence causing death).
It’s a spectrum – cases in (2) are the less serious ones, but they still result in death. So manslaughter is the overarching category and negligence causing death is a subset of that. At least, that’s how I understand it – happy for clarification from others?
Thank for your response Legal Eagle. I read in the paper that the police ruled out the mother’s negligence. The mother is not on trial. Pool fencing laws are there as a line of defence against momentary lapses of parental attention. If the fence was there as a barrier to this child’s access to the pool there is a very high probability that the child would have been found unharmed. I can imagine mother was frantically looking for him. I fail to see how pool owner is not liable and will not be held resposible for child’s death. I have read that there is reluctance by juries to convict for manslaughter, so not being a legal person I am wondering if there’s a lesser charge than manslaughter that still reflects that the pool owners’s act or ommission caused this child’s death. I’m not comfortable with this man getting away with this and the mother being blamed.
JLM, no, there’s not really a lesser crime for causing death. In the past, Parliament have had to develop specific statutory crimes for gross negligence causing death (culpable driving causing death is an example). There’s not a specific statutory offence for negligent upkeep of pool fence causing death, so it has to fall under manslaughter. I do think the notion of manslaughter being a step down from murder makes people reluctant to convict for these kind of incidents. And yes, as a mother of young children, I feel dreadfully sorry for the mother.
Gaol the parent or carer if a child drowns far better than fencing any pool. Usual excuse mum tells Police or is advised by Police to say they looked away for a minute. No doubt if the truth was told these are the toddlers than run wild everywhere they go and never under control. Police look for anyone to charge except mum.
Does the mother know the Police. The matter is very suspicious as if a mother kills a new born Police are first to say it is not in the public interest to charge them. Yet these mothers are free to roam amongst children. when the little 8 year old was killed by the bow at arrow on boxing day at Manilla Police said no charges to be laid. Surely you can sit in your own home without neighbours butting in.
Anyone noticed how the 9 year old child that drowned at Roseville back yard swimming pool has been hushed up. Then again no parent about but no charges laid. When the toddler was killed at Ballarat playing on the Railway line and mum had only a part fence on her property no charges laid as she had Police support and it was said fences should not be mentioned at a time like that. Train driver breath tested.
Charges have been dropped.
Thanks for the update, Marcellous!
One Trackback
[...] in a fish tank and leaving them; the stronger predators eat the weaker until you are left with one uber-yabbie or, in this case, uber-rulership. (The post-Roman British Isles displayed a not dissimilar pattern, [...]