‘Massively negligent’: Mum admits sleeping as her two kids met horrible death in hot car
A Logan mother has admitted leaving her two young children in a parked car for nine hours leading to them suffering a death that “defies description”.
Kerri-Ann Conley, the mother of two girls who died after exposure to extreme heat inside of a car has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. AAP Image/Social Media)
Kerri-Ann Conley, 30, of Waterford West, pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday to two counts of manslaughter.
Crown prosecutor Sarah Dennis said Conley had taken her daughters Darcey-Helen, aged two-and-a-half, and Chloe-Ann, aged 18 months, to her friend’s place at 11.30pm on November 22, 2019 and returned home at about 4am the next day.
Conley left the children in the seats in the car because she did not want to wake them and went inside her home, sending a text message at 5.55am before falling asleep.
The car was left in direct sunlight with no shade and all doors and windows closed, leading to the car reaching an estimated temperature of 61.5C by 10.30am.
When Conley returned to the car she found the children dead and took them out of the car before trying to dispose of drugs in her house.
She called an ambulance and told paramedics she had fallen asleep but gave a false account of her movements to police when they arrived.
The paramedics found the children hot to the touch and their skin started peeling when they attempted resuscitation.
“This offending clearly represents a complete abrogation of a parent’s responsibilities,” Dennis said.
“The children were defenceless to the situation she put them in and unable to protect themselves from the soaring temperatures inside the car.”
Conley’s barrister, Jeffrey Hunter, said there had been “no logic” to his client misleading police and her conduct in leaving the children in the car “falls below wickedness but above stupidity” in the spectrum of manslaughter.
“The picture painted by the evidence is of a chaotic, drug-addicted and in the end delinquent mother who made a tremendously stupid, arguably selfish, and admittedly massively negligent decision to leave the children in the car,” Hunter said.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that two children are dead. It’s one thing to lose to two children but it’s quite another to know they experienced death that really defies description.”
Hunter said Conley had not committed an impulsive act of violence against the children and many people could say she had otherwise loved and looked after them.
Justice Peter Applegarth said Conley’s sentence was “amongst the more difficult to decide” and he felt the need to reflect on it.
The sentence hearing was adjourned to a date to be fixed.
