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Home / World

Father of three-year-old girl who died from being punched repeatedly in the stomach is sentenced to nine years

Daily Mail
6 Apr, 2017 01:51 AM3 mins to read

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The father of Brisbane toddler Kyhesha-Lee Joughin who died after days of horrific sexual abuse has been sentenced to nine years over her death.

The father of Brisbane toddler Kyhesha-Lee Joughin who died after days of horrific sexual abuse has been sentenced to nine years over her death.

The father of Brisbane toddler Kyhesha-Lee Joughin who died after days of horrific sexual abuse has been sentenced to nine years over her death.

Matthew Lee Williamson watched his three-year-old daughter die slowly and painfully from internal injuries after refusing to take her to see a doctor after noticing her vomit was green.

Justice Roslyn Atkinson on Thursday sentenced Williamson to nine years' jail and declared the crime a serious violent offence, meaning he will need to serve at least 80 per cent of his sentence before he can be eligible for parole.

The three-year-old died on the Easter weekend of 2013, inside the two-bedroom Petrie flat where she lived with her father and his housemate Christopher Kent, who was also found guilty of manslaughter.

The court heard Kyhesha-Lee would have been in 'serious pain for days before her death'.

Williamson didn't want to 'lose custody of her' so never took her to see a doctor - even though she had green vomit, was bleeding in her nappy and was dehydrated and lethargic.

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The injuries were treatable, according to medical experts - who said if she was taken to the medical centre located just 500m from her house she would have lived.

Kent, who was handed a two-year suspended sentence for his role in the young girl's death - and testified against Williamson during the hearing.

Kent told the Court the toddler's father would often hit her - and told him to 'hide the bong' kept at the home before he would call for help after she had died.
'It was like two adults fighting,' Kent said of the abuse.

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He said Williamson, who generally slept through the day, would lock his daughter in her bedroom for hours on end and would become enraged when she then ended up throwing her faeces inside the room.

Daily Mail Australia earlier revealed the moment Williamson called triple-0 after he found his daughter dead.

'My daughter's not breathing... I fell asleep on the couch,' he said.

'She's stiff it's like rigor mortis.'

'I can't pry her mouth open.. can't move her arms.'

During the trial - which was delayed first for a psychology report on Williamson and then after floodwaters swept through Brisbane - Williamson admitted to locking Kyhesha in her room using rope.

But he denied a raft of abuse allegations, including using a large sex toy on Kyhesha, punching her in the stomach, posing naked with her and pulling on her ear until it bled.

Williamson had custody of Kyhesha since splitting with her mother Danielle Joughin in 2010. The pair lived with his father until October 2012 when they moved into the Petrie apartment where she died.

The toddler's hair had been shaved shortly before her death to hide patches where it had been pulled out, according to court documents.

The three-year-old went to childcare on March 21 and looked healthy - but by March 29 she had a swollen and bruised face, court documents reveal.

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During her ex-partner's trial Kyhesha-Lee's distraught mother Danielle Joughin said the little girl 'went through hell' and she 'blames herself'.

'I had the chance to take her from him and I didn't because she loved him so much,' Ms Joughlin wrote on Facebook just months after Kyhesha-Lee's death.

In another post, the mother-of-four admitted she had 'made mistakes' in regards to the toddler and was 'not perfect'.

'Knowing the s*** that was going on in that house while my daughter was there, may as well of thrown her in a room full of paedophiles,' she wrote.

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