Donna Deaves sentenced to nine years without parole over daughter's death
AAP, Yahoo!7 Updated September 18, 2013, 3:02 pm
A mother who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her two-year-old daughter has been sentenced to nine years non-parole period in jail.
She was given a total sentence of 12 years in jail.
During her trial Donna Deaves, who let her two-year-old daughter die, told a Sydney court "of course" she loved the child.
Her two-year-old daughter, Tanilla Warrick-Deaves, died from a number of injuries in August 2011.
Deaves told the Supreme Court in Sydney she was sorry for her daughter's death.
"Of course I'm sorry," Deaves, who seemed belligerent at times during her sentence hearing, said.
"I've lost everything."
Deaves pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her daughter on the grounds of criminal negligence.
A co-accused, who can't be named for legal reasons, will stand trial for murder at a later date.
Tanilla's father, Adrian Warrick, told the court that because his daughter could no longer speak for herself, he would do it for her.
"I am her voice," Mr Warrick told the packed court room in a choked voice.
"I am Tanilla Warrick-Deaves."
The "smiling", "always happy" toddler died after she was found with a number of injuries in a NSW house in August 2011.
Mr Warrick described how he came to Australia at the age of seven after being separated from his family in Colombia.
Tanilla was everything to him as a result, he said.
But after he broke up with Deaves, she constantly rebuffed his attempts to see the little girl.
After eventually spending time with Tanilla, he said he begged the Department of Community Services (DOCS) not to let her go back to Deaves.
"(I told them) 'She's my blood, help her'," he said.
"But no, she was allowed to go back to her mother."
"...I never saw Tanilla until the day we buried her.
"That's how I got my baby girl back - dead."
Mr Warrick implored Justice Stephen Rothman to consider his daughter's short life.
"It breaks my heart to sit here knowing the people who should have cared for and protected her did neither," he said.
"She was let down by so many people."
Tanilla's stepmother Brooke Bowen said the toddler "seemed like the happiest girl in the world" when she was with them.
"The only time I saw her upset was when she was taken back by her mother," her stepmother said.
"That was the last time I ever saw her."
Goward 'playing with caseworker numbers'
Meanwhile, NSW Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward has been accused of spinning "a web of deceit" about caseworker numbers.
The NSW opposition on Wednesday released a series of internal emails showing a drop in numbers at an office in Wollongong.
They show that while the office had 43.9 full-time equivalent staff in June 2011, this had decreased to 32.7 by December last year.
The emails indicate positions were set to be cut to 29 full-time equivalent staff from January of this year.
The revelations come more than a year after Wollongong caseworkers walked off the job in August, sparked by the death of two-year-old Zoran Ivanovski from a serious head injury.
The boy had been reported to the department in the weeks leading up to his death.
The Public Services Association of NSW (PSA) said then that "protracted understaffing and ongoing job cuts" meant caseworkers simply didn't have the resources needed to follow up at-risk children.
Ms Goward maintained on Wednesday that at the time of the two-year-old's death the Wollongong office was overstaffed.
"They were slightly over their budgeted allocation of 37.7 positions," she told Fairfax Radio.
But Opposition Leader John Robertson accused her of playing with the numbers.
"She is looking to complicate a situation because she has spun such a web of deceit," he told reporters.
"This minister can try and dress it up, she can mince her words.
"The fact is there has been a reduction from 44 to 33 staff in an 18-month period."
It was time for Ms Goward to resign, he said.
"If she doesn't, then (Premier) Barry O'Farrell needs to explain why it is that he thinks it is appropriate for Pru Goward to sit on his frontbench."
Ms Goward said it was up to the department to decide where positions are filled.
