Dubbo murder case: Foster mum guilty of killing toddler

A former foster carer has been found guilty of the murder of a 20-month-old Aboriginal toddler who died after sustaining horrific injuries, including one usually suffered by car-crash victims.

The woman, who cannot be identified due to court orders, faced a 2½ week NSW Supreme Court trial in regional NSW after pleading not guilty to murder.

After attending a gathering at a neighbour’s house with his foster family, the boy died sometime during the night on March 23, 2015, at a home in a town outside of Dubbo.

The court was told the boy’s cause of death was a stomach perforation.

He was found covered in bruises, with a broken leg and multiple other injuries, before being flown to Coolah Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7.30am.

After attending a gathering at a neighbour’s house with his foster family, the boy died sometime during the night on March 23, 2015, at a home in a town outside of Dubbo.

The court was told the boy’s cause of death was a stomach perforation.

He was found covered in bruises, with a broken leg and multiple other injuries, before being flown to Coolah Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7.30am.

Two hours earlier, the woman called triple-0 and at the start of the call while unaware someone was listening, the court was told that she said “they’re gonna think I bashed him”.

“Am I going to get in trouble for this?” the woman asked the operator before claiming the boy fell over in the bath and had vomited in his cot.

Less than four hours after the boy was pronounced dead, the woman gave her first “bizarre” interview with police, Justice Richard Cavanagh told the court.

“She smiled and even cracked the odd joke with the officers,” he said.

“It was hardly the presentation that might have been expected given the circumstances.”

When police asked the woman if she broke the boy’s leg, she said “yeah, I had to of”.

“Even when I got him out of the cot, I must have chucked him around or forced him or threw him harder than what I thought,” she said.

“ I was in a panic. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

The court was told the woman claimed the boy’s injuries could have been self-inflicted or inflicted by another person.

Justice Cavanagh said while no person called to give evidence had witnessed the woman doing anything to the boy “that might have led to the injuries which he was subsequently discovered to have suffered”, the woman was the only person likely to have “assaulted or attacked” the boy.

“The femur and stomach injuries could not have been caused by some accidental, excessive gripping or inadvertent twisting,” Justice Cavanagh said.

“His face was also stained by the acid from his stomach contents. There is no evidence of these marks to his face being present at the time when he left the neighbour’s house approximately nine hours earlier.

“The stomach rupture is a very rare injury. It is normally associated with motor vehicle accidents; such is the force that would have been required to cause the rupture.”

The woman did not give evidence at the trial, but in earlier police interviews the court was told that she gave inconsistent versions of events.

“The accused gave inconsistent explanations as to why there was a bloodstained towel in the bucket adjacent to the cot and when the towel was used on the deceased,” Justice Cavanagh said.

“The facial injuries arose from someone either hitting him, slapping him, grabbing him or some way forcing him into a hard surface. Abrasions and fingernail scratching might suggest some type of resistance.”

The court was told the woman had a history of becoming aggressive when she consumed alcohol, which she was under the influence of in the hours before the boy’s death.

“I am not suggesting the assault was planned,” Justice Cavanagh said.

“It may be that the accused simply lost control being angry with the deceased. Whether or not the actions of the accused were only a temporary loss of control, such acts on a 20-month-old toddler could have only been intended to cause grievous bodily harm.”

The woman is due to be sentenced in May and has been remanded in custody.

The court was told the organisation that placed the boy in foster care, Uniting Care Burnside, was notified that he had bruises on his head in 2014 while in the woman’s care.

She said the bruises were caused by the child “headbanging a wall and a car”.

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