Rodney Stevens
A man will be sentenced later this month after pleading guilty to manslaughter in relation to the alleged ‘shaking death’ of a seven-month-old girl at South Grafton in December 2015.
Alyviah Hayne was just seven months old when she died in a Grafton home in 2015 after her mother left her with her then boyfriend, Jake Luscombe, for 41 minutes while she went to her father’s house.
When no cause of death could be determined at the time, the matter was referred to the coroner.
A coronial inquest was held in Sydney into Alyviah’s death in September 2020, where the coroners court heard she was ‘most likely shaken to death’.
Mr Luscombe, of Muswellbrook, was charged over the baby’s death after the inquest was completed.
Following the tragic incident, Alyviah’s mother didn’t identify herself and her daughter for seven years while investigations were being conducted, but after Luscombe pleaded guilty to manslaughter at Grafton Local Court on Tuesday, May 2, Brooke Skinner spoke to 7 News.
“I’m happy she’s finally getting justice, but no one wants to hear it, especially from the killer’s mouth that they killed your daughter,” Ms Skinner said, choking back tears.
When Ms Skinner left her daughter with Mr Luscombe, she said she was laughing and in a red walker at the time.
“She was happy there playing and I left her there,” she said.
“And I have to live with that every day.”
Upon returning home 41 minutes later, Ms Skinner said she saw Alyviah’s hand moving on the couch where she was sleeping.
Just 10 minutes later, when Ms Skinner returned to check on her baby, she found her with froth coming out of her nose and she started screaming that she wasn’t breathing.
The inquest heard a neighbour helped perform CPR on Alyviah before paramedics arrived.
But by the time paramedics arrived they reported the baby was cold to touch, with a blue head and lips and mottling on the sides of her body.
It was revealed in the inquest, Alyviah suffered unexplained trauma to her body, bruises on top of her forehead and buttocks and swelling to her brain.
Police facts before the court showed Luscombe finally admitted to causing “a traumatic non-accidental head injury by way of the application of rotational acceleration and deceleration force to her head,” to the seven-month-old.
An expert told the inquest she suspected ‘vigorous shaking’ may have caused her head to whiplash, contributing to her death as one of two haemorrhages detected in Alyviah required a “significant amount of force to occur”.
Mr Luscombe will be sentenced at Coffs Harbour District Court later this month.