Parole for man who breached suspended sentence by pawning

A TOOWOOMBA man previously convicted of harming a three-month old baby has avoided serving the remainder of his suspended sentence behind bars.

Mike Barrie Finnigan found himself at risk of spending actual time in jail after pleading guilty to two breaches of a four-and-a-half year suspended sentence in the city’s District Court yesterday.

The court heard on two separate occasions, Finnigan fronted the Magistrates Court for pawning stolen goods at Cash Converters and Pennywise in the Toowoomba CBD.

Those offences breached a court order made in 2015, when he was convicted of grievous bodily harm against an infant child.

Details of that offence read out in court revealed Finnigan shook the three-month-old so violently it had seizures and “would have died were it not for medical treatment”.

His barrister Jessica Goldie submitted her client had since completed a number of courses to address the issues in his life including those relating to parenting and substance abuse.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren noted the breach offences were not of a similar nature to the grievous bodily harm incident and that he was charged by police for pawning the stolen goods on behalf of a friend.

“I don’t want to dwell on those facts too much but this was a serious case of grievous bodily harm against an infant child,” he said.

Finnigan was sentenced to serve six months in jail, but was released on parole immediately.