WHAT PRICE A LIFE?

There is a terrible story, a shocking story, that I have become involved in. It involves a three-year-old boy, and our legal system. The boy is dead.

His name was Jonathan Guiver. He died four years ago from a fractured skull. And bleeding to the brain. A coroner found that his death was caused by trauma. By a blunt instrument to his head.

At the time of his death he was with a man named Mark Mietto. He was the boyfriend of his father’s ex-wife.

The Supreme Court was told that Mietto had previous convictions for violent offences apparently committed after he’d been drinking. Mietto had been drinking and using marijuana the night before Johnathan died.

Mietto apparently woke Jonathan’s mother at 5.30am to say something was wrong with the boy, and later he asked her to say that it was she , the mother, who found the little boy in a distressed state.

Mietto later admitted involvement, saying the boy was hurt when he bent down to pick up a toy football.

Justice Nettle said pathologists’ evidence established it was highly unlikely Jonathan died that way, then sentenced Mietto for manslaughter by gross negligence.

Chris Guiver, the little boy’s father, received a letter from the Justice Department on May 26 this year saying a decision was made NOT to grant Mietto parole yet, but – the letter said – the case would be reviewed in September this year. The father was told he could lodge a submission in relation to this.

Something happened. The dead boy’s father was told on Friday that Mietto had been released. That day. Mark Mietto… whom a court found was involved in the death of a three-year-old boy is now out there. Walking the streets. A free man. And a father grieves and wonders about justice.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005