Perth baby left to die because 'stoned' dad couldn't find car keys
A Perth mother and father have been jailed for leaving their baby daughter to die.
The eight-week old girl suffered horrific injuries during a fall and stopped breathing, but her father says he did not take her to the hospital because he could not find his car keys.
The conditions inside baby Narelle Pears’ James Street home were squalid and filthy.
The baby’s father Tony Paraha called triple-0 three days after he says his daughter bounced off a bed onto the floor, and his four-year-old son landed on her.
The newborn was undernourished and suffered a traumatic brain injury with multiple skull fractures.
But Paraha and the baby’s mother Melanie Pears, who has a mental illness, never sought any help.
“She told the psychiatrist that she couldn’t live with herself; that she wanted to go to jail, that she’d done a dreadful thing by not caring for the child properly,” defence lawyer Bill Harris said.
Paraha told police he didn’t take his baby daughter to the hospital because he was stoned, didn’t know were his car keys were and was concerned child protection workers would take his other children away.
The court also heard it didn’t occur to him to walk the short distance to the local doctor’s surgery.
Justice Paul Tottle said the baby’s injuries were shocking and horrific and she must have suffered agonising pain, prolonged by her parents’ neglect.
Paraha was sentenced to nine years’ jail and Pears to six-and-a-half years.
