A woman who left her sick and starving ex-husband to die while covered in faeces and lice has failed to overturn her conviction.
Libby Jade Baker, 44, was sentenced to at least three years in prison in the NSW District Court in December for the manslaughter of her husband, Johnathan Young.
The 58-year-old spent five months in Baker’s care in their home before he died in 2012 from rectal, liver and renal cancers.
A judge-alone trial found Baker was criminally negligent for failing to care for Mr Young in the months leading up to his death, when he weighed just 35.8kg.
The trial judge concluded Baker’s neglect caused Mr Young to develop cachexia (extreme weight loss) and ulcers, which were significant causes of his death.
One nursing unit manager gave evidence during the trial that when she visited Mr Young a week before his death, she noticed he was “dirty, covered in dried faeces and had an offensive smell” as well as being infested with lice and their eggs.
She told the court she had never seen anyone in his condition and he looked dead.
After a 10-year fight for justice, Baker was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with a two year non-parole period on December 23 last year.
But her legal battle was not over yet.
Baker appealed her conviction with the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
Her lawyer Madeleine Avenell SC argued there was a reasonable possibility Mr Young’s cachexia and pressure sores — which stemmed from Baker’s neglect — did not cause his death.
Bur the three appeal judges dismissed the appeal on Wednesday, pointing to several doctors and medical experts who gave evidence that Mr Young’s cachexia and multiple lower limb ulcers were “significant contributing causes to his death”.
They found that while a third stroke was considered to be the direct cause of death, the medical opinion was that those conditions made it “much more difficult” for Mr Young to survive the third stroke.
According to the published judgment, “causation was proven beyond reasonable doubt” and the judges were “satisfied there is not a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted of manslaughter”.
Baker’s legal team also appealed the sentence on the grounds it was “manifestly excessive,” but this attempt was also dismissed by Chief Justice Robert Beech-Jones, Justice Ian Harrison and Justice Robertson Wright.
The justices noted the maximum sentence for manslaughter is 25 years imprisonment and did not find a sentence of five years for a crime which was found to be of ‘high seriousness’ to be manifestly excessive.
Skin ‘hanging from bones’
When Mr Young was rushed to hospital, he weighed the same as an average eleven-year-old, was covered in lice and suffered from grotesquely infected sores.
That was after he spent months in the “comfort” of his own home, supposedly being cared for by Ms Baker, despite clearly needing to go to hospital earlier.
The trial heard he died on October 16, 2012, just 11 days after being hospitalised.
It earlier heard a community services worker visited the couple’s North Richmond home in early October, only to be overwhelmed by the smell of faeces and rotten flesh, with Mr Young’s skin “hanging from his bones”.
Judge Deborah Sweeney found Baker failed to provide him with proper food, hygiene and medical attention, which led to his death.
The court heard Baker struggled with substance abuse in recent years, particularly of heroin.
Crown prosecutor Tarik Abdulhak argued Baker had shown “prolonged neglect extending weeks, not days”.
“What elevates the seriousness is the sheer range of resources available to the offender,” Mr Abdulhak said during the trial.
Baker will be eligible for release on parole December 20, 2025.