Babysitter pleads guilty to manslaughter
A WARWICK woman charged in relation to the death of a toddler she had been babysitting has pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter.
Lisa Rose Halcrow appeared in custody before the Toowoomba Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon.
Asked how she pleaded to the charge of murder, the 42year-old replied: “Not guilty to murder but I’m guilty of manslaughter”.
Crown prosecutor Philip McCarthy KC told the court the Crown would accept Ms Halcrow’s plea of guilty to manslaughter.
The charge arose from the death of two-year-old Connor John Horan, who had been in Ms Halcrow’s care on August 19, 2018.
That day, Ms Halcrow had rushed the toddler to hospital where he was found to be suffering from a number of head and internal injuries.
Despite medical teams performing CPR on Connor for about half-an-hour, he died at the hospital.
The cause of his injuries has not yet been made public in court.
Ms Halcrow was arrested and initially charged with murder and grievous bodily harm in February 2021, and has remained in custody since.
However, the grievous bodily harm charge had been “severed” from the charge of murder.
Mr McCarthy told the court that following Ms Halcrow’s sentence hearing on the manslaughter charge he would seek that the grievous bodily harm charge be remitted to the District Court to be dealt with.
Defence barrister David Jones said there were ongoing negotiations relating to the grievous bodily harm charge and further submissions would be put to the Crown.
Justice David Boddice remanded Ms Halcrow in custody until her sentence hearing back in Toowoomba Supreme Court on Friday, November 18.