Daycare company Goodstart Early Learning to be sentenced over death of Maliq Nocholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo

A sentence date has been set for the daycare company which operated a Cairns centre where a young boy tragically died on a bus.

The body of three-year-old Malik Nicholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo was found on a Goodstart Early Learning centre bus at Edmonton, south of Cairns, in February 2020. Picture Supplied

A sentence date has been set for the daycare company which operated a Cairns centre where a young boy tragically died on a bus.

The Cairns Magistrates Court on Friday set down a sentence date of September 29, after Goodstart Early Learning pleaded guilty to three charges brought by Education Queensland over the death of Maliq “Meeky” Nicholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo, 3, in February last year.

The boy was left on a bus for six hours, with the Edmonton centre director Michael Glenn Lewis, 46, sentenced to six years’ jail for manslaughter in February.

Goodstart Early Learning has pleaded guilty to one count of failing to adequately supervise children, failing to protect children from harm/hazard likely to cause injury and failing to take reasonable steps to ensure documentation is accurate.

Members of the public laid flowers and left teddies at the Goodstart Early Learning Centre, Edmonton, following the tragic death of Maliq Namok-Malamoo, 3, who was left in a minibus in 2020. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

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The first two of those charges carry maximum penalties of $50,000.

When the matter was last mentioned in June, Goodstart’s barrister Dan Pratt indicated the company would be entering pleas of guilty but told the court there were some “minor negotiations around the third charge”.

During the criminal court proceedings for Lewis it emerged “Meeky” had been falsely logged into the daycare’s computer system before he arrived, staff forgot to collect him from his home, Lewis did not make his mother sign him onto the bus as per policy, then left him on-board for hours while being stressed about being late for a meeting.

In sentencing him, Cairns Supreme Court Justice Jim Henry was scathing of Goodstart and said Lewis’ mistakes “occurred in the context of what was also an organisational or corporate failure”.

Originally published as Daycare company Goodstart Early Learning to be sentenced over death of Maliq Nocholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo