Vic: Father's chronic violence was fatal for child, court told

AAP General News (Australia)
02-02-2004
Vic: Father's chronic violence was fatal for child, court told

By Nick Lenaghan

MELBOURNE, Feb 2 AAP - A father who habitually "smashed things" in anger fatally bashed
his 10-week-old daughter during a police stand-off, the Victorian Supreme Court heard
today.

Brent David Quarry, 34, formerly of Launceston in Tasmania, has admitted to murdering
baby Sharni Montaana (Montaana) during what began as a domestic dispute at suburban Hampton
East on August 7, 2002.

He has also pleaded guilty to causing serious injury to the infant's mother Sonia Elizabeth
Tate and recklessly causing injury to a police officer who was at the scene.

In a plea of leniency before Justice Philip Cummins today, Quarry's lawyer Peter Chadwick
said the pair had only recently arrived in Victoria hoping to make a fresh start after
meeting in a rehabilitation centre.

Their relationship was stormy and both had abused prescription pills and alcohol in
the past, the court heard.

In addition, Quarry - who lost his second and last job aged 18 after a drunken binge
- had destroyed household items "ever since he was a child".

"Smashing property was his means of getting his way," Mr Chadwick said.

At the pair's Hampton East unit, Quarry also resumed a habit he had acquired in his
20s - mixing tranquilisers with alcohol - even though he was aware the combination made
him "quite volatile".

His de facto left the unit after a fight and Quarry had barricaded himself inside along
with their child when he began smashing items in the lounge room, the court heard.

Soon after pleas from police negotiators to leave his daughter at the front door, they
heard a series of thuds against the inside of the locked door.

Later police watched through the window of the flat as Quarry dropped the baby on the
floor in an apparently deliberate manner, the court heard.

The baby died from head injuries after suffering five separate fractures.

"Sharni became just one of the items, Sharni became just one of the things in the room,"

Mr Chadwick said.

"While he damaged her, while he smashed her, it wasn't his intention to kill her.

"Sharni was just simply there, Sharni was little more than in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Quarry's lawyer argued the tragedy was an "irrevocable" conclusion after the couple
brought alcohol and pills home and Quarry had "little or no control over his thought processes".

But Justice Cummins interrupted the plea several times to query whether Quarry's negotiations
with police instead showed his conduct was "purposive" and his actions toward the infant
deliberate.

"Where is the material which suggests he thought the child anything but a living human
being even if he spent much of his life smashing things up?" the judge asked.

Before resuming the plea tomorrow, Justice Cummins asked Mr Chadwick to consider whether
the "deliberate killing of a vulnerable child" was "in the worst category of murder".

Justice Cummins is expected to sentence Quarry on Friday.

AAP nl/dk/drp/jlw

KEYWORD: QUARRY

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