Kyhesha-Lee locked in room with rope, father's manslaughter sentencing hears

By Andrew Kos

A Brisbane father who has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his three-year-old girl locked her in a bedroom using rope while he slept in the day, and would slap her like an adult, his sentencing hearing has been told.

Kyhesha-Lee Joughin died in March 2013 at a Petrie home north of Brisbane from internal injuries.

Her father, Matthew Lee Williamson, pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year but has denied causing the injuries.

During a contested sentencing in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday, Williamson’s flatmate Christopher Kent said he witnessed Williamson hit Kyhesha-Lee on the shoulders and buttocks.

“He’d smack her and slap her,” Kent said.

“It was like two adults fighting, it was just mean and horrible, it was nasty.”

Kent, who was also charged with the girl’s manslaughter and sentenced last year, told the court Williamson also used a rope to lock his daughter in her room — tying one end to her doorhandle and the other to his bed.

The court heard Kyhesha-Lee was locked in her bedroom for many hours at a time and was unable to use the bathroom.

While locked in her room, she threw faeces at the wall.

Williamson ‘more interested in smoking than dead daughter’

Kent said Williamson was asleep on the couch on the day Kyhesha-Lee died when he noticed the child’s lips were blue.

He told the court he attempted to give her CPR and wake Williamson up by kicking the couch.

He eventually roused him and told him to call an ambulance.

“All he was concerned about was a coffee and a smoke,” Kent said.

Kent then fled to New South Wales before the ambulance arrived and called a former partner, telling her: “I’ll be extradited back to Queensland for murder.”

“I figured I’d be the one who’d be blamed,” he told the court.

Sexually explicit photo allegedly found

Kent told the court that on the day Kyhesha-Lee died he discovered a sexually explicit photo of her and Williamson but in a panicked state threw it in a neighbour’s bin along with drug utensils after realising the child was dead.

Under cross-examination, defence barrister Michael Copley said police did not find the photo and put it to Kent that it never actually existed.

“It would’ve been a pretty good insurance policy for you wouldn’t it?” Mr Copley asked.

To which Kent responded: “I wasn’t thinking about insurance.”

Kent also told the court in the weeks before Kyhesha-Lee’s death, he became entangled in a flag in their bathroom and fell on the girl in the hallway.

Mr Copley told him he had made up the story to cover up violence he had inflicted on the toddler.

“No I did not,” Kent said.

Asked why he never contacted police about Williamson’s alleged abuse, Kent responded: “I kick myself in the arse every day … and I go over it every day”.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.