Toddler killer appeals length of prison sentence

A man who killed his 2-year-old daughter while ‘‘restraining’’ her, face down on a pillow, wants his jail term reduced.

Philip Murray Kinraid was sentenced to four years and three months’ jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

His daughter Esme died on June 26, 2015, at the family home in Hawera.

Kinraid’s lawyer, Paul Keegan, told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that, without Kinraid’s own admissions to police, including, ‘‘I think I may have killed my daughter,’’ he might never have been charged.

A pathologist had at first been unable to decide the cause of death, but after being referred to Kinraid’s account of what happened, the pathologist said it was consistent with his findings.

Esme had resisted going to bed so Kinraid held her face down on her pillow, he estimated for five to 10 minutes, when he tried to settle her, suffocating her in the process, the sentencing judge said in February this year.

Justice Rebecca Ellis said then that Kinraid had called it restraint, but it was a grown man holding a toddler face down.

She rejected the suggestion that it should be treated similarly to cases of parents who, for instance, briefly left a child alone in a bath, and the child drowned. She thought it was more like the cases in which children died as a result of being deliberately shaken.

At the appeal hearing, Keegan said Kinraid had told police he might be guilty of manslaughter and went on demand that the police shoot him.

Keegan said Kinraid, a chemical engineer, should not be seen as similar to an enraged parent who shook a baby. He did not think he had done anything wrong, and had been calm and relaxed afterwards.

He checked Esme later and thought she was breathing normally, but another check late at night found she was dead.

One of the three appeal judges, Justice Raynor Asher, said Kinraid subdued his daughter by force and it was purely a matter of judgment on his part whether she lived or died.

Another of the judges, Justice Christine French, said Kinraid said he was monitoring Esme’s breathing, so it was plain he knew what he was doing was dangerous.

The sentence had not given Kinraid enough credit for his cooperation with police, his remorse and good character, Keegan said.

Crown lawyer Annabel Markham said the combined discount of about 35 per cent for those factors, plus Kinraid’s guilty plea, had been ‘‘generous’’.

The Court of Appeal reserved its decision. - Stuff