AAP / Brisbane Supreme Court
A Brisbane man who has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his daughter was more interested in getting coffee and a cigarette than helping his roommate save the toddler’s life, a court has heard.
Matthew Lee Williams is being sentenced in the Supreme Court of Queensland over the death of three-year-old Kyhesha-Lee Joughin, who died in March 2013 after she suffered significant physical and sexual abuse.
The court heard detailed evidence from Williamson’s former housemate, Christopher Kent, who recounted how he tried to revive Kyhesa after noticing her lips were turning blue.
Kent, who previously spent 19 months in jail after also pleading guilty to the manslaughter of the child, explained that he tried to wake Williamson and ask for his help and he slept on a nearby couch.
“He didn’t give a sh**, Kent said. “He just wanted his coffee and smoke.”
Kent claims he never physically or sexually assaulted Kyhesha and blamed Williamson for her death.
However, the defense team for the girl’s father insists that Kent was the one that inflicted the fatal injuries, and that Williamson woke to find his daughter not breathing and stiff with rigor mortis.
At the time of her death, Kyhesha had suffered bruises to her face, lacerations to her ear and lip and a stomach injury that was consistent with a blow from a fist, foot or adult falling on her.
Williamson claims that the toddler was injured when Kent slipped and fell on her three days earlier.
Kent told the court that he regularly witnessed abuse of the young girl during his time living with the family at a unit in Petrie.
He said that Williamson would lock his daughter in his bedroom for hours on end, tying her to the bed while he slept during the day.
Kent claims that Williamson would become enraged when she threw her faeces around the room and that in the weeks leading up to her death he saw him punch Kyhesha in the stomach her arm and smack her.
“It was like two adults fighting,” he said.
“She cried and cried and all Matt could do was yell.”
He added that on the say the child died, while he was clearing a bong, ice pipe, needles and empty beer bottles from their share house, Kent found a photohgraph of Williamson resting his penis on his daughter’s shoulder.
Despite this, police failed to find any photographs during subsequent searches of the house.
Several other witnesses are expected to give evidence to the court as Williamson’s sentence hearing continues.
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