Vic: Baby killer sentenced to jail for son s death

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-2001
Vic: Baby killer sentenced to jail for son s death

By Stuart Walsh

MELBOURNE, April 20, AAP - A father who killed his baby son in his cot with a savage
blow to the head was today jailed for up to nine years by the Victorian Supreme Court.

Twelve-week old Bo-Dylan Dempsey's skull fractures were about a week old when he was
pronounced dead at the Mount Beauty hospital, in Victoria's north-east, on August 12,
1998.

The battered and bruised child had been taken to hospital by his father, Brendan Eric
Dempsey, now 32, and mother Kathleen Linda Dempsey, 24, from what the judge described
as their "filthy and appalling" old farmhouse in the small hamlet of Upper Gundowring,
between Mt Beauty and Wodonga.

Drug addict Brendan Dempsey, who received a maximum sentence of nine years, also admitted
breaking his son's leg two or three days before he died.

The leg had been strapped with a makeshift splint using a plastic ruler broken into two.

Supreme Court Justice Frank Vincent said Dempsey and his wife, both heavily addicted
to drugs, appeared to have been unable to look after either themselves or their children,
baby Bo-Dylan and their two-year-old son.

He said Dempsey was an intelligent and articulate man, but, as his life deteriorated,
his level of anger and frustration probably increased.

"Being either unable or unwilling to address the situation responsibly, you attacked
a helpless baby on two separate occasions, safe in the knowledge that your victim would
not be either able to resist or complain," he said.

The judge said it might have been possible to view Dempsey's behaviour in a more favourable
light if it could have been interpreted as the striking of a heavy blow to the head while
he was emotionally volatile in response to incessant crying.

However, a few days later Dempsey "snapped his (the baby's) femur in a fit of anger
and again refused to take him to hospital", the judge said.

"You appear to have been indifferent to his state of wellbeing and to have used him
as an object to relieve your own sense of frustration," Justice Vincent said.

Dempsey, originally charged with murder, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Justice Vincent said it was reasonably clear the baby had been "quite savagely struck".

An autopsy found that Bo-Dylan died as a result of head injuries inflicted at least
a week before he was taken to hospital by his parents.

Doctors at the hospital found he suffered multiple skull fractures, brain damage, facial
bruising, a broken leg and bronchial pneumonia.

When first questioned by police, Dempsey denied any knowledge of, nor provided any
explanation for, his son's "massive head injuries", the judge said.

Dempsey was eventually arrested after a 12 month homicide squad investigation.

He then told police he had killed his son by punching him once to the head as he lay in his cot.

He said he had been "crazy, thinking crazy things" and had taken amphetamines and a
lot of codeine for toothache.

The judge said Dempsey was well aware of the seriousness of the injuries he had caused
to his son but was more concerned about being found out than he was for the welfare of
the child.

Justice Vincent said Dempsey's level of culpability could be seen to be reduced because
of the extreme physical and emotional abuse he had suffered as a child.

Earlier this year, Kathleen Dempsey was acquitted on a charge of manslaughter.

The Crown alleged she had been criminally negligent and was therefore guilty of manslaughter
by failing to obtain medical treatment for her son.

Outside the court, Kathleen Dempsey said she thought the sentence was not harsh enough.

AAP sew/clr/las/sb

KEYWORD: DEMPSEY NIGHTLEAD

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