A MONSTER dad has been jailed for life after he killed his six-month-old daughter by violently shaking her and throwing her onto the ground.
Arron Colin Martin, 37, murdered his daughter Isabella Sully Jean Martin at their home in Perth, Western Australia in November of 2017.
The frustrated father had just returned from working a night shift when the baby, who was showing signs of teething, wouldn’t settle down to sleep and kept crying.
The Daily Mail reports that at this point Martin told the court that he “snapped” due to sleep deprivation and threw Isabella down onto the floor from a height of around two metres.
During his trial, which took place this week, Martin said he had actually dropped the child rather than thrown her.
But Justice Stephen Hall said the child’s injuries required considerable force and he did not accept that she had been dropped.
He was given a life sentence with a minimum of 12 years served before he could be considered for release.
After the attack, Martin said she was still breathing but her head was beginning to swell – he then lay the baby down in her cot and left the room.
He was helping his wife, Nicole Martin, look after their only child when the violent attack happened.
When Martin returned from his shift, his wife left the house to go complete a day shift at McDonald’s, where she worked as a manager.
Before she left she said she noticed that Isabella was a “bit grizzly” as she was recovering from a cold and had a stuffed nose, but she wasn’t particularly unsettled.
The father than allegedly tried to end his own life twice at the home, then he sat in a park before turning himself into police.
Paramedics rushed to the property but they were sadly unable to resuscitate the infant.
The baby had survived for two to five hours after the attack, suffering from skull fractures and brain haemorrhaging.
The judge noted that prior to the killing, Martin had appeared to have been a good husband and father,
He sad: “This is a terribly tragic case.
“You momentarily lost control.
“There was no planning, forethought.”
