JazzVibe

WARNING: Confronting

Killing children gets you less jail time in Queensland but even the parents of Hemi Goodwin-Burke, who was “crushed like a Coke can” by his babysitter, didn’t expect the justice system to show their child’s killer such mercy.

Because Matthew James Ireland, 33, didn’t show 18-month-old Hemi any as he violently bashed and tortured the child he had been entrusted to protect.

And just two years after he plea-bargained a murder charge down to manslaughter, Ireland is bidding for his release from prison.

Hemi had been left in the care of Ireland as Hemi’s parents drove the 1000km from their Queensland home to Brisbane for medical treatment.

Kerri-Ann Goodwin and partner Shane Burke, a mining worker, live in the central Queensland coal mining town of Moranbah, in the Peak Downs southwest of Mackay.

In March 2015, Ms Goodwin had injured her back in a workplace accident and had to see a neurosurgeon.

She and Mr Burke had planned to drive to Brisbane with their kids, but after their car broke down they borrowed a ute, which had only two seats and no room for the children.

The couple had known Matthew Ireland for a decade. He had no criminal record and presented as trustworthy and reliable.

The pair was preparing to head back from Brisbane to their Moranbah house and their children when they learnt of their babysitter’s fatal betrayal.

The night before they had spoken to their kids about 6.30pm, gone to bed and woken early to a series of missed calls from Hemi’s grandparents, who told them to call police.

Officers, who had already taken a preliminary, false version of events from Ireland, told them to fly straight to Townsville.

“We found out later he started drinking as soon as we left,” Shane Burke told news.com.au.

“He locked the kids in the house and went down to the pub to buy alcohol.

“Every time he went inside to have another drink, he inflicted another blow on little Hemi.”

Hemi died in hospital in March 2015 after Ireland’s assault over several hours ruptured the boy’s spleen, severed his brain stem, broke his rib and left 75 bruises.

Mr Burke said Ireland gave four different statements to police. He initially blamed another child at the house, saying he “hit (Hemi) with a chair”. He later told another lie, that Hemi “had just slipped over” and had a seizure.

The boy was taken to Moranbah Hospital, then flown to Townsville Hospital.

Doctors told Shane and Kerri-Ann the brain stem injury meant he had “really died at our home … he was just on machines”.

Police charged Ireland with torture and grievous bodily harm.

When Hemi’s life support was switched off, they charged Ireland with murder.

Ireland was heading to trial for Hemi’s murder when, in March 2017, he pleaded guilty in the Mackay Supreme Court to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Mr Burke said the plea denied his family an opportunity to find out exactly what had happened.

Although the agreed facts said Hemi was tortured over a few hours, in one statement Ireland had said it was 10 hours.

“He pushed him down in his cot, he kicked him like a football, he squeezed and crushed him like a Coke can,” Mr Burke said.

“He says he just ‘lost his s**t’.

“He had no previous (convictions). On the face of it, he was trustworthy.”
Ireland spent two years in remand centres — where no rehabilitation programs for child offenders exist — before his plea and transfer to a Brisbane prison.

Ireland wept in the dock of the Mackay court as he was handed a sentence of eight-and-a-half years in prison.

But because the maximum sentence was less than 10 years, Ireland was due for parole after just four years.

Mr Burke’s and Ms Goodwin’s angry families protested after the sentence, and one man yelled out from the public gallery, “you’re a f***ing murderer”.

The Queensland Government later admitted that sentence was inadequate, and that provision should be made to lengthen sentences for child homicide in certain cases.

But it was up to Hemi’s parents to campaign for sentencing to take into account the vulnerability of a child.

In Queensland, once an offender is sentenced to a maximum 10 years, they must serve 80 per cent of that before being granted parole.

Once Ireland had pleaded down to manslaughter, Mr Burke said it was “hard to prove intent … (and) we don’t accept it, because accepting that is accepting that he didn’t mean to hurt Hemi”.

Ten days ago, on the first day he could possibly apply for release on parole, Ireland did.

“It’s just disgusting,” Mr Burke told news.com.au in response.

“It’s an absolute insult to the memory of our child and I’d be fearful of him being in the company of another child.

“What if he met a single mother and people do not know at all what he’s done?

“Two years is not enough time for rehabilitation.”

After years of campaigning, Mr Burke and Ms Goodwin’s push for stronger penalties got a result, although it has a tragic Catch 22.

The Queensland Government passed the Criminal Code and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 in January.

The bill expands the definition of murder to include reckless indifference to human life and increases penalties for certain child-harm related offences.

“This legislation seeks to capture those child manslaughter cases at the higher end, those involving violence or significant neglect but where intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt,” Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said.

In February, it was revealed Ireland had pleaded guilty to a second child assault, of a three-year-old girl, and received a jail sentence of just a few months, which the Queensland Department of Public Prosecutions appealed.

The Supreme Court of Queensland rejected that appeal in April.

Shane Burke and Kerri-Ann Goodwin have until Friday to make a submission against Ireland’s parole.

They have started a petition on change.org, Say No for Parole for our Baby’s Killer, which has more than 12,000 of the 15,000 signatures required.

“This is a matter of public safety. We cannot let this convicted child killer into our community where he could violently take another child’s life,” the petition says.

Mr Burke said because it was up to the victim’s families to push for change, he and his family had not had the chance to properly reflect on the killing of Hemi.

“I don’t know if we have properly grieved yet,” he said.

“But no family should have to go through this.

“Time and time again children are getting beaten to death and some have broken bones that have (previously) healed.

“We have new laws which have been implemented.

“But it’s just so sad that we will now have to wait for another child to die to see if they are going to work.”

candace.sutton@news.com.au

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