A four-year-old boy who was once "happy, outgoing, curious and adventurous" now lives in a constant state of fear, refuses to sleep alone and is terrified of strangers after suffering serious injuries at the hands of his stepfather.
In victim impact statements previously handed to the ACT Supreme Court, the boy's grandparents detailed the emotional burden of the assault on the child.
"It is as if a light has gone out," they said. "He is no longer the child he was."
The child's stepfather, a man in his early 30s who cannot be named to protect the boy's identity, was handed a two-year and six-months jail sentence on Friday, July 24.
He had previously pleaded guilty to aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The court heard the man had been in a relationship with the boy's mother at the time of the assault, and the four-year-old referred to him as "Pa" or "Dad".
While alone with the child one afternoon, the stepfather searched the internet about head injuries and later took the boy to a mechanic to drop off a car, where the child appeared pale and began to vomit.
The stepfather told the mechanic the boy was unwell as he had fallen off his bike before the pair left the shop.
The child's mother later called paramedics to the home, where they found the boy pale, lethargic, and quiet, with a large deformity on the back of his head and bruising across his body, including his buttocks.
The boy later told medical staff his stepfather had hurt him "because he was being annoying".
He said he was "naughty" when his stepfather "got angry", smacked him "on the bum quite hard", and "made his head hurt".
The court heard the four-year-old suffered a fractured skull, bruising to his brain, three broken ribs, and 34 bruises on his body - injuries two medical experts said were likely caused by blunt-force trauma.
"It is unlikely that this presentation of injuries can be explained by a fall from a bicycle," one expert said. "Rather, these injuries more likely represent blunt-force trauma."
The stepfather initially denied causing the injuries. Although he later pleaded guilty to aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm, he sought to withdraw that plea before sentence. The application was refused.
The court heard that in an interview before his sentence, the man had accepted responsibility for failing to properly care for the child at the time but did not accept responsibility for inflicting the injuries and acknowledged that may "look bad" before the court.
Justice Belinda Baker found the man showed no remorse as she sentenced him.
In evaluating the evidence, Justice Baker addressed prosecution arguments that the injuries were inflicted with an object using considerable force.
While Justice Baker could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence that an implement was used, she said it was "abundantly clear" the injuries were not caused by a bike accident.
On the basis of the medical evidence and the guilty plea - which Justice Baker noted the man was bound to, despite his attempt to withdraw it - she found the stepfather had applied physical force that was "not of a minimal nature" and that the injuries resulted from that force.
The judge said the assault represented "an acute breach of trust", noting the victim was only four years old, regarded the man as a father figure and was assaulted in his own home where the child should have felt safe.
She found that only full-time custody was appropriate and rejected a defence submission that the sentence could be served in the community under an intensive corrections order.
