Magician pleads guilty to manslaughter over autistic boy's death
A self-styled magician has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife’s autistic son, who died after he was bound to a chair in a garden shed at their NSW home while soaking wet in extremely cold conditions.
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, appeared at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court on Thursday.
Before being handcuffed and led to the cells, he handed his staff, which had an intricate carving and crystal ball, to his wife, Fairfax Media reported.
She went on trial last November after pleading not guilty to manslaughter but the verdict has not yet been published due to a non-publication order.
The 11-year-old boy died in hospital in October 2011.
His parents had resorted to using packing tape and trucking straps to restrain the child who they said had become physically difficult.
On the night of his death, the boy's stepfather carried the child to the shower while strapped to a chair and placed him under cold water – a method used to settle the child.
He was then returned to the shed, soaking wet and arms still bound to the chair, on a night when temperatures dropped to five degrees.
Autistic boy died after being bound to chair, showered in cold: court
The shed had no insulation, the only heater present was not connected and the boy’s thin 24kg body had little ability to heat itself.
The boy’s stepfather later summoned his mother to ‘come quick’ to the back shed, where he was untying the child who was limp with his tongue hanging out.
Police alleged he suffered hypothermia.
Fairfax Media reported the stepfather had blamed everyone else for the boy’s death for almost four years, and had posted an online manifesto titled “Justice4[his son]”.
He blamed the medical system, detectives, judges, doctors and government departments.
On his website, where he wrote about the power of gems, crystals and the moon cycle, he said he had returned to magic to protect his family from the “evil out there in the world”.
"I feel every time I left my practice of magic, I have had horrifying events happened to me in life, especially when my son died because the system let him and my family down," he wrote.
He described 2011 as a nightmare and wrote that they had “begged the pediatrician to do tests or give our son sleeping tablets to help our son sleep as he was getting only about four hours sleep in a 24 hour day…” Fairfax Media reported.
The man will be sentenced in April.
