DPP v Williamson [2000] VSC 115

Supreme Court of Victoria|2000-03-31|Before: CUMMINS, J.

Criminal Law - Sentencing - Murder - Child killed by father to punish mother - Considerations applicable - Life imprisonment.

Braddon Park was born on 17 November 1993. He was the child of you, Mr. Williamson, and of Lisa Park. He was a bright, intelligent, warm and loving child. He had but five short years to live.

You and Ms. Park had first met in 1989 near Gosford on the central coast of New South Wales. You were 20 and she was 18 years of age. At the time you were in the Australian Army. You and she commenced a relationship. The relationship was characterised by jealousy and possessiveness by you towards her. You were discharged from the Army and commenced in other occupations including that of truck driver. You and Ms. Park lived together on the central coast. On a number of occasions she left you, only to return. Ultimately Braddon was born. Eight months later Ms. Park, with Braddon, left you for the final time. They continued to reside in the local area. You were greatly upset by that final separation.

Access to your child was provided you by Ms. Park. Once the child was old enough, daytime access became overnight access. Through solicitors, orders by agreement were made in the Gosford Local Court on 29 July 1994 that Ms. Park had custody of Braddon and that you had access to the child each alternate weekend from 5.00 p.m. on Friday to 5.00 p.m. on Sunday, on certain other days, and for some part (to be mutually agreed) of your annual holidays. Ms. Park did not impede your access to your child.

You resented, and failed to fulfil, your obligation financially to support the child. You and Ms. Park had agreed that you would pay $50 a week in financial support of the child. You fell into substantial arrears in that obligation. Ms. Park ultimately abandoned pursuit of the arrears and the matter of continuing payment was taken up by the Child Support Agency. You resented not being in financial control of the situation. You also considered the financial burden impeded your own advancement in life. You complained to friends that the financial burden was destroying your life. You blamed Ms. Park for it. Wrongly. You developed a deep anger towards Ms. Park for it. On 13 May 1999 you applied to the Gosford Local Court for variation of maintenance and a stay order under the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989. The matter was due to be heard on 30 June 1999. You failed to file relevant financial material. The matter was adjourned to 7 July. On that day Ms. Park did not appear as she thought the adjourned date was a week later. You did not attend Court either. There the matter rested. The point of that recitation of fact, Mr. Williamson, is that the pathway of the law was always open to you, and you knew it was. But you did not choose the law; you chose murder.

You were possessive not only towards Ms. Park. You were, in the words of your sister, "possessive, very overwhelming" towards Braddon: not only doting but obsessive about Braddon. In the first three years things struggled by. But then, unfortunately and ultimately tragically, your resentment towards Ms. Park commenced to sour your relationship with your son. You would play mind games with Braddon in order to distress his mother. The unfortunate child, who should have been given emotional care by you, was manipulated by you to spite his mother. You told the little child his mother was a bitch. After access the child would come home upset or, as Ms. Park said, "if Braddon got home and he was happy, (you) would make sure he was sad when (you) left."

All the time the dark pathology of hate was developing within you. You told all those who would listen that Ms. Park was a "fucking bitch." In 1999 when the law ordered you to meet your financial obligations to your child you blamed Ms. Park and, in the words of a witness, you were "absolutely furious". Your sister said your life was "consumed" with Lisa and Braddon. And in 1999, months before the deed for which you are now to be sentenced, you began contemplating the dark pathway you ultimately chose.

On 4 March 1999 - four months before Braddon's death - you wrote a two page letter, exhibited before me. It was headed "To whom it may concern." In it you cynically blamed the law for your perceived troubles. I say cynically because you could have availed yourself of access to law but you chose not to. You concluded the letter:

"I've always been persistent and usually get what I want. So now I finally do, and for the love of my son Braddon he also gets what he wants as I have taken my son's life as well as my own, the simple reason being love - nothing else! I fathered him to Lisa and gave him life and also have taken it - and we both get what we want. And that's to be together. And now we will be together forever!! And for Lisa, your turn to live without him."

One night in March when you were drunk you showed the letter to your sister and said to her "You might as well read this." Your sister started to read it, threw it back at you and criticised you for your conduct. However, your sister, who impressed me as a responsible woman, became concerned both at your conduct and at comments and hints you kept dropping. She invited you to come to live with her and her husband to give you a supportive environment. That you did.

In the four months before Braddon's death you said to persons on a number of occasions that you were going to kill yourself and take Braddon with you. These statements were made usually when you had been drinking or were furious about money. No one believed you would do such a thing. Some three months before Braddon's death you said you wanted to kill Lisa - and then, in the words of the witness, you "changed (your) mind and said there'd be a better way to fuck her life, and that would be to kill (your)self and kill Braddon too." A month before Braddon's death, you said when drunk "Tonight's the night" but gave no further exposition of your dark thoughts. It is clear that for the months prior to Braddon's death, you were contemplating the dark and terrible prospect of killing your son.

When you went to live with your sister and her husband, because of your comments about Braddon, she said to you "If you touch a hair on that kid's head, I'll kill you myself." In the fortnight before the child's death, you were drinking more heavily. You told your sister you would no longer be needing your furniture. You commenced to ask persistent questions about whether your father was buried at Sale, Victoria (as in fact he was) and whether you were born in Sale (as in fact you were). A change occurred that week: you went quiet about the earlier continuous topic, Lisa and Braddon. It was not they you were now speaking of. It was the city of Sale and its associations. But the change in that fortnight was not only one of topic; it was a change of mood. Your mood had changed from one of anger to one, in your sister's words, which was "very solemn and very distant."

On the night of Friday 9 July 1999 your sister's husband had been working late. He arrived home about 3.00 a.m. on the Saturday. You were sitting in the unlit loungeroom with the television on. You stared straight through the husband in an unnerving way. You were a pale and pasty colour. Concerned, the husband went to bed.

On that weekend, because Braddon had a child's party to attend on the Friday afternoon, your weekend access was to be from Saturday morning to Monday morning. On Saturday 10 July 1999 you picked up Braddon at his home, apparently for a normal weekend's access. Some of his clothes were still being dried so Ms. Park said she would bring Braddon's clothes around to you later that morning. You and Braddon left at 10.00 a.m. Ms. Park brought the clothes around at 11.00 a.m. You and Braddon were gone. She was never to see Braddon alive again.

In your four wheel drive utility, you drove the child to Victoria. In his innocence he had trust in you. On the Saturday night you and he stayed at a Victorian snow resort and played in the snow. On the Sunday afternoon you both arrived at Sale. You and he first went to the cemetery where your father was buried but you could not find the grave. You then went into the city centre of Sale and purchased some items including Stanley trimming knife blades and some cans of bourbon and coke. You booked into a Sale motel for two nights. You put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Braddon had a takeaway meal in the motel room and ultimately went to sleep. You drank some of the alcohol you had purchased. You had brought the innocent child to Sale to kill him and while he was asleep you put a pillow over his head and smothered him. He died in his bed. The pathologist stated that the cause of death was asphyxia by smothering. You inflicted no other injuries to him. You then wrote to his mother a letter, exhibited before me. In it you complained about access and about money. You continued:

"... Well have I got news for you. You're not getting Braddon back, and you're not getting any more money from me! again. You are a fucking useless bitch Lisa Park. And you are now going to suffer for the rest of your fucking useless life. I hope you rot in hell for the rest of your miserable rotten lonely life - this place they call earth. I've taken Braddon with me because all he wanted was to be with me. Why, you ask: well I was born in a place called Sale, my Dad died here 30 years ago - now I've died here - and my son has died here as well. Just the 3 of us. You have no idea how much you destroyed my life and my son's life. I could keep writing on paper, all the reasons why - but, fuck you - you don't deserve it. Rot in hell, slut ..."

You wrote a short will. Above the body of Braddon you placed a photograph of your father with a notation beside it "Died 24th of the 8th 70." You consumed the rest of the alcohol you had purchased in Sale and took the razor blades you also had purchased and inflicted superficial lacerations to both sides of your neck and a number of lacerations to the outside of your left arm. You suffered substantial blood loss and at 4.15 a.m. Tuesday 13 July - exactly 24 hours after you had killed Braddon - you rang reception for an ambulance for yourself. The ambulance arrived quickly. You were taken to the Gippsland Base Hospital and medically treated. You had fulfilled your purpose.

When investigating officers applied ninhydrin to the mirror of the bathroom in your motel room, the following words appeared:

"Dad and Brad 1999 1969 30 years 1999 1994 1999 5 years Together forever".

The words were written by you of your own volition. The words referring to Brad were not written at your son's insistence, as you put to the jury in an attempt to avoid their implication as to your intention regarding him. They had been written by you as an epitaph to you and your son.

There were, however, some words written by your son. They are an especially poignant record of his innocence. In your vehicle was found a piece of paper. On it in Braddon's handwriting are the words "Goodbye to Mum." The trusting child did not know the truth of what he wrote. Although the words are in the hand of an innocent child, their author was a guilty adult - you, Mr. Williamson. They were written by him, at your instigation, even before the motel was entered. And in the motel room, again in Braddon's hand, is a child's drawing of two figures and a bicycle in a cloud. At its foot are the words, written by you:

"Braddon drawed this. Up in heaven + motor bike. 'Daddy + me', he called it."

At the Gippsland Base Hospital in Sale during Tuesday 13 July, facing as then you were the public revelation of your actions towards your child and the reality of prosecution, you were diagnosed as profoundly suicidal. On Wednesday 14 July 1999 you were charged with the murder of your son. At trial you pleaded not guilty and gave evidence that your purpose in going to Sale was to kill yourself because you had "had enough" and you wished to die where your father had died. You gave evidence that you took your son with you because you did not know how your father had died and you wished your son in turn to know how you had died. You said you had no intention of killing your son. You gave evidence that although you remember smothering your son you did not, and do not, know what you were thinking at the time - that there was "nothing there". The jury convicted you of murder.

Mr. Williamson, you are now 30 years of age, two months short of 31. You were born on 26 May 1969. You have two inconsequential prior convictions which I put aside other than they show, as the history in this case showed, that you had a problem with alcohol. Yours is not a case of a history of violent behaviour; rather it is of a history of jealousy, then resentment, and then hate sinking into the darkness of the intention you ultimately formed.

Mr. Williamson, you are the fifth of seven children. Your mother had the seven children by three fathers. You had a most unfortunate upbringing. The whereabouts of the father of the four eldest children is unknown. Your father died when you were one. The father of the two youngest children is still in a relationship with your mother. Each of the two eldest children died before they were two. The third is in gaol in South Australia for murder. The sixth is addicted to drugs. The seventh drowned aged two in a swimming pool on Christmas Day. Now you are to be sentenced for the murder of your only child.

You were substantially brought up by your grandparents and were educated to Year 10. From the age of 15 you knew that your father had died at Sale. You asked, but were not told, the circumstances of his death. You felt an emotional vacuum around you. Your father had served in the Army and you joined the Army because that is what your father had done. You left the Army to be with Ms. Park. You doted on your son and were distraught when Ms. Park, with the eight month infant, left you - which she did because of your jealous and controlling behaviour. When you arrived in Sale on Sunday 11 July 1999 you went straight to the cemetery, before you went to a motel or to the shopping centre. You tried to find your father's grave but were unsuccessful. But your purpose, Mr. Williamson, in searching for your father's grave was not, as your counsel submitted, the purpose of your trip to Sale. You had had for years the knowledge and the means to go searching in Sale, but had done so only when you had determined to kill your own son. The search for your father's grave was but part of a darker purpose - the death of your son, at the place where your father had died, in order to afflict the life of your son's mother. It was an odyssey not of discovery but of hate.

I take into account in mitigation of penalty your afflicted family situation and the other matters which your counsel so ably urged upon me, including the especially burdensome quality of imprisonment which you will serve and which has already had its burdensome incidents. I also take into account your age, your lack of convictions, and the rehabilitative courses you have undertaken in custody. You have served 262 days in pre-sentence detention and pursuant to the provisions of s.18(4) Sentencing Act 1991 I declare that period of 262 days already served under the sentence I today impose and I so certify.

Mr. Williamson, you are not of course to be punished for the evidence you gave at the trial and you are not. However, that evidence and your conduct are relevant on the question of remorse. Your evidence, although given in a shower of emotion - at least in chief - displayed a calculating and precise mind directed to explaining away the mass of evidence against you. You have no remorse for your crime although you are afflicted by the consequences of it.

Braddon's mother, Ms. Park, although deeply distressed, bravely gave evidence before the jury. You have grievously afflicted, indeed devastated, the lives of Braddon's mother and other relatives. I have read their very moving victim impact statements.

Significantly, and although I directed the listing of your plea to enable its elucidation, no psychiatric or psychological evidence has been called or tendered on your behalf. You suffer no psychiatric illness and no psychological condition lessening the turpitude of your conduct. The crime was committed with full deliberation and because of emotion. The emotion was hate.

Your counsel submitted that the proper conclusion on all the evidence was that you went to Sale to find your father's grave and that the intention to kill your son (which the jury must have found) was formed only late and in the motel room. I do not agree. Conscious as I am of the seriousness of the finding, and for that reason applying to it the standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt, I am affirmatively satisfied that you started contemplating the killing of your son four months before you killed him and that you formed the actual intention to kill him at least a week before you did. That was your purpose in taking your son that Saturday morning from the safety of his mother's care. As you previously had said to a friend, rather than kill Lisa you had "a better way to fuck her life." And as you wrote from the motel to Lisa, "you are now going to suffer for the rest of your fucking useless life."

The killing of children by parents, or by those in charge of children, keeps happening. I have had regard to a body of material on the extent and cause of this lamentable phenomenon. In 1980 the substantial study On the Side of the Child: an Australian Perspective on Child Abuse by Professor P. Boss was published. In 1993 the Australian Institute of Criminology published its Report No. 53 Children as Victims of Homicide by Ms. H. Strang. Numerous other works and articles have been published. I have had regard to the research of Dr. Ania Wilczynski "Child Killing by parents: a motivational model" (1995) 4 Child Abuse Review 365, "Risk Factors for Parental Child Homicide" (1995) 7 Current Issues in Criminal Justice 193, "Mad or Bad? Child Killers, Gender and the Courts" (1997) 37 British Journal of Criminology 419 and (with co-author A. Morris) "Parents who kill their children" (1993) Criminal Law Review 31; also of C. Lewis and M. O'Brien "Constraints on fathers: research, theory and clinical practice" in (by those authors as editors) Reassessing Fatherhood: New observations and the modern family (1987); and of P.J. Resnick "Child murder by parents: a psychiatric review of filicide" in (1969) 126 American Journal of Psychiatry 73. In 1959 the United Nations_'_ Declaration of the Rights of the Child declared: "The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection." Children are vulnerable. They put their trust in parents and others whose charge it is to care for them. Parents and those others have a profound duty to fulfil - and not abuse - that trust. The Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, to which Australia is a signatory, sets forth 54 Articles. Of all the rights of the child, the most fundamental right of all is the right to life. It is necessary that parents and others in charge of children unmistakably understand that child abuse will be met by the full force of the law. The intentional killing of a child by a person without psychiatric illness or other significantly mitigating factor will ordinarily be met with life imprisonment of the offender.

Of the manifold elements of sentencing, a number have especial significance in your case, Mr. Williamson. First, condemnation. The Court and the community condemn your murderous conduct. Next, punishment. You are to be punished for that conduct. Next, general deterrence. That element is of especial importance, for the reasons I have stated. Of least importance is special deterrence. Given your background, age and lack of other criminal history, reformation is also important. I am conscious the especial burden imprisonment will be upon you. In determining the minimum term to be set before you become eligible for parole (as well as generally), I have regard to your background, age and lack of criminal convictions. However, Mr. Williamson, you have in the most grievous and deliberate manner abused the profound trust reposed in you to respect and protect the life of your child. For the murder of Braddon Park I sentence you to life imprisonment. I direct that you serve a minimum term of 24 years' imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole.

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Before

Source

Judgment (34 paragraphs)

Parties