Heartless dad who left baby to die on park bench sentenced

A father who claimed he was “fried” on ice when he left 22-month-old baby Baden Bond alone to die on a park bench south of Brisbane and “didn’t even look back” has been sentenced.

A HEARTLESS father who left his 22-month-old baby alone to die on a park bench in Eagleby has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars.

Shane Simpson, this week confessed to the manslaughter of 22-month-old Baden Bond in May 2007, saying he became “tired” of caring for the boy and drove away leaving the defenceless child only metres from the Logan River and “didn’t even look back”.

Simpson was today sentenced to 12 years behind bars and must serve 80 per cent of his sentence before being released on parole.

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The baby’s mother, Dina Bond, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact after helping the man cover up his actions by lying to friends, family and authorities about what happened to the tiny baby.

She was sentenced to a head sentence of three years’ jail and is eligible for parole today, after serving almost two years on remand.

On Monday, Crown prosecutor Danny Boyle told the court the pair called the baby a “devil child”, “evil” and “a little dog f*****”.

Years after leaving Baden in the park, Simpson told friends Department of Child Safety officers had taken the boy and they “didn’t feel like he belonged to us”.

Mr Boyle said the man claimed he was “fried off my head” on ice at the time he abandoned the baby.

Shane Simpson and Dina Bond. Picture: Darren England

The court heard Simpson planned to leave the baby at Beenleigh but when he saw the location near the boat ramp to the Logan River it looked like a “quiet place”.

He told detectives he sat on a park bench with the boy and talked to him for 15-30 minutes before patting on the head, saying “sorry” and leaving him alone.

“Baden was mentally slower and he couldn’t talk,” Simpson told police, saying he couldn’t “really connect” with the boy.

“He said he was just tired of caring for him,” Mr Boyle said.

“He left him there and didn’t even look back.”

The court heard Simpson told police he was “hoping someone would find him and look after him”.

In sentencing, Justice Peter Applegarth said Simpson’s decision to leave Baden alone in the park “practically invited a tragic end to his life” and was in the “worst category of criminal neglect”.

“It was your act in abandoning him that placed him in great danger,” he said.

“If he was to be abandoned, he might have been abandoned in a hospital foyer, a shopping centre … or some other place of safety.

“Even abandoning him in the main street of Beenleigh would have given him better chances of survival.”

Shane Simpson admitted to leaving 22-month-old baby Baden Bond on a park bench near the Logan River without looking back. Picture: Queensland Police Service

Justice Applegarth said the fact Simpson did not return to the scene in the hours after he had left the baby or phone the police, made the manslaughter more serious.

He said it must have been obvious the child would have “perished” after being attracted to the water’s edge and it was a “positive, deliberate act of abandonment”.

“You did not turn around 10 minds later or return to the area that night,” Justice Applegarth said.

“You went home and got on with your life … You then spent a decade deceiving family and friends about his whereabouts.”

He later said the “planned” abandonment of the boy was committed against a background of “neglect, detachment and even animosity toward the child”.

“His remaining time alive (at the park) was probably full of fear and an understanding he had been abandoned,” Justice Applegarth said.