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Warning: distressing content
A man will spend at least 8½ years behind bars for the shaking homicide of his eight-week-old son, with the judge also finding the father had abused the baby on previous occasions.
Bradley Hooper cried in the dock as Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry described on Tuesday the abuse Hooper perpetrated on his son before it culminated in five to six shakes in the early hours of August 27, 2021.
Hooper was sentenced to 11 years in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.Credit: Darrian Traynor
During the hearing, Hooper, 34, repeatedly looked over at his family, who were crying and gripped by grief, and his hand shook when he sipped water.
Lasry told Hooper he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that previous fractures found on the baby’s body, for which Hooper was not charged but which had a bearing on the length of his sentence, were inflicted by Hooper on previous occasions he was caring for his son.
“A significant additional punishment … is the knowledge that the rest of [the baby’s] family will almost certainly never forgive you,” Lasry said.
Lasry labelled his offending as a violation of “the fundamental norms of proper parental care”.
“When an entirely dependent infant is involved, regardless of the pressures on a parent … the welfare of the child must remain a paramount state of mind,” he said.
Hooper’s son was born on July 2, 2021, the third of three boys. He was the baby’s primary carer while Hooper’s wife was recovering from an emergency caesarean.
Before the baby died, he was taken to hospital several times to be treated for fractures, bruising to his body and groin, and scratches on his face.
The court heard that in the early hours of August 27, 2021, Hooper was attempting to get the baby, then 56 days old, to drink from a bottle.
In a moment of frustration, the court heard, Hooper shook him five or six times. Two days later, on August 29, Hooper and his wife called 000 and rushed the baby to hospital after he turned blue and collapsed.
In the hours after the baby collapsed, Hooper conducted a series of internet searches to try to determine how long it takes symptoms of brain damage to emerge after an incidence of abuse.
The next day, on August 30, the family turned off life support.
The court heard that earlier that morning, Hooper was asked by his wife on the phone whether he shook their son.
After a long pause, he responded: “A little bit, not profusely, not hard, but I did shake him a little bit.” Hooper told police in an interview later that day that the shaking “wasn’t vicious”.
He told police he was 95 per cent sure he did not shake him rapidly, but that when he did shake him, his head “snapped back and forth”, the judge said.
Hooper was charged with child homicide in August 2022 and pleaded guilty in November.
The couple began their relationship in 2013, married two years later and started a business furnishing houses for sale. Hooper has not had contact with his other two children since the baby’s death.
The court heard Hooper had a traumatic childhood, that he had been removed from his biological parents between the ages of one and two, and placed in 13 different foster homes throughout his childhood. He was abused at some of these homes.
Hooper was sentenced to 11 years in prison but will be eligible for parole in eight years and six months. He has already served 110 days of pre-sentence detention. The maximum sentence for child homicide is 25 years.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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