Mum’s fright over snake in cot
Grandad rape charges
A GOLD Coast mum has spoken of the terrifying moment she spotted a deadly brown snake sliding its way into her four-month-old daughter’s bedroom.
Aleisha Mitchley had taken her daughter Sophie out of her cot less than an hour before she spotted the metre-long snake at the bedroom door.
“I don’t know if that’s why she was unsettled, I don’t want to think about it,” Ms Mitchley told 9News.
“I couldn’t believe it can climb, so it was climbing on through the window. It was up around the bassinet, in her cot, it was all over.
“It was petrifying, I was very scared, I didn’t know what to do. I’m trying to reach for my phone and stop my son from trying to go see the snake.”
Queensland residents are being warned to be on high alert for eastern brown snakes – especially now that it’s mating season. Eastern browns are the second most venomous snake in the world.
Tony Harrison, from Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catchers, previously said eastern brown snakes were much more common than locals realised.
“They’re everywhere in the Gold Coast. I catch a couple a day so people need to be more aware,” he said.
The brown snake visit left Ms Mitchley terrified for her children’s safety.
“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” she said. “It was very scary.” A GOLD Coast grandfather allegedly raped his four-yearold granddaughter three times in their bathroom, the Southport District Court heard.
The man, who legally cannot be named, pleaded not guilty yesterday to three counts each of rape and indecent treatment of a child.
Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson told the jury the alleged rapes occurred between May 2016 and March last year.
Mr Jackson said the girl was in the bathroom with her father when he locked the door, pulled both their pants off and raped the girl.
The girl’s mother yesterday told the court she spoke to her daughter about it when the girl told her grandmother she had “seen grandpa’s doodle”.
She said the girl did not want to talk about the alleged incidents. The woman said about a year later the girl spoke to her mother about the incident. “She told me they had a game,” the woman said.
The trial continues today.