Delay over daycare bus case

THE sentencing of a daycare company charged over the death of a Cairns boy left on a bus has been significantly delayed because of the large amount of evidence the company is compiling to show improvements to its procedures since the tragedy.

Maliq Nicholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo, known to family as “Meeky”, 3, was found dead on the bus belonging to the Edmonton Goodstart Early Learning daycare in February last year after being left on board for six hours.

The centre’s director, Michael Lewis, was handed a sixyear

jail sentence for manslaughter - to serve 18 months earlier this year.

Education Queensland has since launched separate legal action against Goodstart, which operates about 600 centres around Australia.

The company has pleaded guilty to failing to adequately supervise children, failing to protect children from harm/ hazard likely to cause injury and failing to take reasonable steps to ensure documentation is accurate.

It was due to be sentenced on Tuesday.

Goodstart’s barrister, Dan Pratt, told the Cairns Magistrates Court on Monday that the 500-page statement on the agreed facts was still in draft form and they were awaiting three affidavits, including one from a technical expert who will give evidence about changes to the company’s procedures to “make sure something like this never happens again”.

“We had planned to have everything to (Education Queensland) by the end of last week,” he said.

“Just to assure the court, the matter is in hand.”

Magistrate Joseph Pinder adjourned the case for another mention on August 13, telling both lawyers that “the whole thing reflects poorly on both of you”.

“This is a very busy court,” he said.