- Updated
- National
- Queensland
- Crime
Scalded baby’s mum angry that suspect slipped past police and left Australia
By Cameron Atfield, Marissa Calligeros and Cloe Read
A mother whose baby had scalding coffee thrown over him in a Brisbane park says she is angry the suspected attacker slipped from the reach of detectives, as he fled Australia by the time they knew who he was.
A team of about 30 detectives had been on the case since a man poured the contents of a Thermos over the nine-month-old boy.
The boy’s mother said she had lived in fear for two weeks, and the family had been given little information by police, so as not to impede the investigation.
The alleged attacker captured by CCTV cameras running from the park.Credit: Queensland Police
Brisbane detective inspector Paul Dalton said there was a moment of celebration on September 1 – five days after the attack – when they identified a suspect.
But they realised the man had left the country just 12 hours earlier, on August 31.
Dalton said the suspect was a 33-year-old foreign national, whose name and nationality were not being made public because of operational reasons.
“I was in the investigation centre when we put a name to the face, and it was a very happy room, only for us to do a check in 15 minutes and find out we lost him,” he said.
“It was deflating, but that deflation quickly turns into determination and resilience to get the job done.”
Dalton said it had been “one of the most complex and frustrating investigations” he had been involved in, in large part to the suspect’s counter-surveillance methods.
“We had a name to start with. That name turned out to be incorrect – it wasn’t actually the person we were looking for,” he said.
“It soon became apparent to us that this person was aware of police methodologies, was certainly conducting counter-surveillance activities.
“It wasn’t until the first of September that we were able to put a name to the face of the CCTV. Even at that stage, we probably didn’t have enough evidence to obtain a warrant.”
The boy’s mother said the past few weeks had been immensely hard for her and her family.
“We have now been informed that within a matter of days of the attack, he had already fled the country and actively avoided police tactics to track him down.”
The mother described the man as a monster, explaining she had been not wanting to leave the hospital initially.
“This attack has changed our lives and destroyed my mental health for years to come. It has ripped this part of motherhood – a happy and joyful time – from beneath me.
“Although I feel some ‘comfort’ knowing that he is no longer in the country, I feel an excruciating amount of anger that he couldn’t be apprehended immediately.
“We now just have to wait weeks, months or even years until justice is served for our boy.”
Dalton said the 33-year-old had been coming and going from Australia on working and holiday visas since 2019. In his most recent visit, he had been in Australia since January 2022.
He had no fixed address in Queensland, Dalton said, but had been known to live in NSW and Victoria. Detectives were investigating whether the man had been sleeping rough in the Stones Corner area of Brisbane.
Dalton confirmed the man, whom he described as an itinerant worker, drove to NSW after the August 27 attack and he was known to be in the state on August 28.
He flew out of Sydney International Airport three days later, on August 31, having bought his plane ticket that day.
Dalton promised to provide an update when the man was on his way back to Australia to face justice.
“I’ll be on the plane next to him,” he said.