International Desk
banglanews24.com.bd/ AFP
SYDNEY: An Australian man was sentenced to life in jail Friday for murdering his three young sons by driving his car into a reservoir and leaving them inside.
Robert Farquharson had denied deliberately killing the boys, who were aged two, seven and 10, on Fathers Day 2005, saying he lost control of the car after blacking out during a coughing fit.
But a Victorian Supreme Court jury rejected his story. In sentencing him, Justice Lex Lasry said Farquharson had subjected his children to a terrifying death while his actions had devastated a number of people.
"Primary among them is your ex-wife Cindy Gambino, the mother of these three children," Lasry said, adding that the tragedy of the case "almost defies imagination".
Farquharson was returning home from a Fathers Day visit with Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and two-year-old Bailey in September 2005 when he drove into the reservoir in southern Victoria state.
He managed to swim to the surface but the children, trapped by their seatbelts, drowned. Their mother Cindy Gambino said no sentence would ever be enough.
"I have a life sentence, so should he," she said outside court.
Farquharson, who will not be eligible for parole for 33 years, is expected to appeal.
BDST: 11101 HRS, October 14, 2010
banglanews24.com.bd/ AFP
SYDNEY: An Australian man was sentenced to life in jail Friday for murdering his three young sons by driving his car into a reservoir and leaving them inside.
Robert Farquharson had denied deliberately killing the boys, who were aged two, seven and 10, on Fathers Day 2005, saying he lost control of the car after blacking out during a coughing fit.
But a Victorian Supreme Court jury rejected his story. In sentencing him, Justice Lex Lasry said Farquharson had subjected his children to a terrifying death while his actions had devastated a number of people.
"Primary among them is your ex-wife Cindy Gambino, the mother of these three children," Lasry said, adding that the tragedy of the case "almost defies imagination".
Farquharson was returning home from a Fathers Day visit with Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and two-year-old Bailey in September 2005 when he drove into the reservoir in southern Victoria state.
He managed to swim to the surface but the children, trapped by their seatbelts, drowned. Their mother Cindy Gambino said no sentence would ever be enough.
"I have a life sentence, so should he," she said outside court.
Farquharson, who will not be eligible for parole for 33 years, is expected to appeal.
BDST: 11101 HRS, October 14, 2010