The Canberra Times

Aaron Bunch

April 11 2019

Shane Akehurst has been jailed for the manslaughter of his toddler Corby Mitchell.

An enraged Queensland father who killed his toddler son by slamming his body against a bedhead will spend at least 10 years in jail.

Shane Purssell Akehurst, 37, was convicted of manslaughter and torture for throwing Corby Mitchell's small body against the wooden frame of a bed in March 2015.

The impact was so forceful that the 21-month-old's brain swelled, and his eyes bled. An autopsy later found the child had suffered 81 separate injuries.

The boy was declared brain dead two days after he was thrown against the bed, and his life support system was switched off.

Akehurst, a father of three, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Brisbane Supreme Court in January. He also admitted a torture charge stemming from a series of assaults on his boy from November 2014. Injuries identified during the autopsy included crushed ribs, a missing fingernail and extensive facial injuries.

Akehurst told investigators he felt Corby's ribs "pop" after he gave him "a really good squeeze".

The boy's penis and scrotum were also bruised and the skin broken, which was likely to have been caused by forceful pinching, the court heard during sentencing submissions. Akehurst told police he had anger issues that sometimes caused him to lose control. He also admitted, on multiple occasions, punching Corby's head when the boy woke and called out to his mother during the night.

On Thursday, Akehurst was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years prison for manslaughter and five years for torturing his son.

© 2019 BIC