Rockhampton woman ordered to trial for stepson’s alleged murder

How a tiny Qld boy could have suffered bleeding eyes and multiple brain injuries has been the subject of a court hearing for his stepmother, charged with murder.

Rockhampton Court House.

A joyful “swinging game” which a stepmother charged with a toddler’s murder claims to have played, is unlikely to have caused his death, a murder hearing has been told.

Logan Shaun Hawkins was two years old when he died from traumatic head injuries in January 2022.

His stepmother, Alicia Jane Lee, was charged with one count of murder after emergency services were called to the family’s residence in Frenchville the day before and Logan was taken to Rockhampton Hospital and then flown to Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane where he died.

A recent committal hearing in Rockhampton Magistrates Court was told Logan had been treated by pediatrician Dr Emma-Jane Roper at the QCH.

The court heard the post-mortem findings showed he suffered a diffuse brain injury – a widespread brain injury with multiple points of impact, along with retinal haemorrhages (bleeds in the eyes) which Dr Roper said were consistent with inflicted injury.

Forensic pathologist Dr Li Ma who carried out the autopsy on Logan opined that Logan’s injuries may have been sustained one of three ways: vigorous shaking of an unsupported head, blunt force impact of the head or a combination of both shaking and blunt force trauma.

The court heard Logan had diarrhoea and was vomiting prior to his death.

It was while Ms Lee’s lawyer, Charlotte Smith, was cross examining Dr Ma that the court first heard about a “swinging game” which the stepmother claimed she was playing with Logan while preparing him for bed.

“She was playing a game with him where he had his legs around her waist and she was swinging him down and blowing raspberries on his belly and he slipped and hit his head,” Ms Smith told the court.

She then put to Dr Ma that some of the features of the swinging game gave a plausible explanation for the fatal injury.

“There is no documented cases resulting fatality from (the common household game),” Dr Ma replied but said if “excessive force” was used, a fatal injury could occur.

She also said Ms Lee’s visual demonstration, recorded in a video and provided to her, showed the way she played it with Logan “was not that out of the ordinary of a common house play”, Ms Lee was not an “exceptionally tall person” and given the lack of reported fatal cases, she believed the demonstration did not fully support a likely fatal outcome for a child.

The court heard Ms Lee claimed Logan hit the back of his head and slipped down several stairs when he was pushed by another child on January 13.

She also claimed on January 15, 2022, Logan was lethargic, had a temperature and slept for much of the day, that the toddler slipped on the stairs of a pool slide about 5pm and hit his back on the slide but the red mark on his back from that incident had gone by bedtime.

Ms Lee claimed Logan hit his head on the bath lip, immediately “soiled himself” and started screaming on January 18, 2022, and suffered a series of other falls that afternoon including tripping on a rug.

The court heard Logan was seen vomiting twice that day at daycare.

Dr Ma said with Ms Lee’s description of Logan’s behaviour after those falls – that he was reasonably active with no evidence of altered consciousness – left her to conclude “those falls were unlikely to have caused significant damage”.

Ms Smith suggested to Dr Ma that Logan sustained “a relatively minor injury to his head at some point earlier in time which has caused a degree of predisposition (proneness) to more severe injury” to which Dr Ma said there was no evidence of that.

Ms Lee was ordered, on October 23, to stand trial in the higher courts.

She did not enter a plea.

Originally published as Rockhampton woman ordered to trial for stepson’s alleged murder