Adam Joseph Hanbury granted bail on charge of murder via reckless indifference

A Queensland dad accused of murdering his youngest child via reckless indifference has been granted bail, as more details come to light.

North Mackay parents Jessica and Adam Hanbury, whose two-year-old daughter Diana died on Thursday, December 29, 2022.

A Mackay dad accused of murdering his youngest child via reckless indifference has been granted bail, after his barrister told a court there are weaknesses in the prosecution case because he left for work hours before she died.

Lawyers for Adam Joseph Hanbury appeared in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Tuesday before Justice Sean Cooper where Crown prosecutor Chris Cook did not oppose the granting of bail.

He and his wife are charged with the murder of his daughter Diana who died aged two on December 29, 2022, and with a second count of failing to apply to register Diana’s birth.

If convicted he potentially faces life in prison.

Prosecutors allege he and wife Jessica Blinda Hanbury (nee Polsoni) each failed to obtain medical treatment for their daughter when she was gravely unwell, and in this way showed reckless indifference to her life.

Summarising the case, Justice Cooper said that police allege Diana was ill for about five days, and it initially appeared that the illness related to teething or some other ailment reasonably common in young children.

A number of her siblings were also ill at this time, the court heard.

Adam Hanbury has been granted bail.

It is alleged Mr Hanbury gave Diana the pain tablet Nurofen, and while her siblings recovered Diana did not, and her condition “deteriorated significantly” in the hours before she died.

Mr Hanbury went to work at about 3.45pm on December 22, and Mrs Hanbury took Diana to Mackay Hospital at 7.45pm and she was not breathing and unresponsive.

Attempts at resuscitation failed and she was declared dead at 8.19pm.

Mr Hanbury has been banned from contacting his wife – with whom he shares four children – who was granted bail to live at the family home in Mackay in May.

The Hanburys’ home along Foulden St in North Mackay. Picture: Heidi Petith

He is also banned from contacting his children, who are living with relatives in Brisbane, the court heard.

Mr Hanbury must live with his brother in South Australia and report to police there three days a week.

Ruth O’Gorman KC, for Mr Hanbury, submitted that her client was not arrested until 14 months after Diana’s death, and he remained in the Mackay community and did not try to flee.