11 Apr 2011

Man who threw daughter from bridge jailed for life

8:15 pm on 11 April 2011

A Supreme Court judge in Australia has told a man who threw his daughter off a bridge his crime could not have been more horrible.

Arthur Freeman, 37, has been jailed for life for throwing four-year-old Darcey Freeman off the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne in full view of rush-hour commuters.

Freeman killed the girl in a fit of rage amid a bitter custody battle with his former wife and must spend the next 32 years in jail without the possibility of parole, the ABC reports.

The court was told Darcey was killed on 29 January 2009 on the way to her first day at school and that her two brothers, aged two and six, watched as Freeman pulled his car over and threw the girl off the bridge.

In the Supreme Court on Monday Justice Coghlan told Freeman he had committed a "horrible crime".

"This was the killing of an innocent child. The circumstances of the killing were horrible. The throwing of your four-year-old daughter from a bridge more than 80 metres above the ground could not be more horrible.

"What Darcey's last thoughts might have been does not bear thinking about and her death must have been a painful and protracted one."

Freeman pleaded not guilty by reason of mental impairment, but his defence was rejected by the jury after a three-week trial. He stood motionless as the sentence was handed down.

Justice Coghlan said many would see Freeman's crime as so serious that he should not get a non-parole period, but decided to sentence him to life with a minimum term of 32 years.