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166794
Wed, 03/09/2011 - 11:42
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Darcey didn't scream, Vic court hears
SIDNEY, March 9 (AAP)- Four-year-old Darcey Freeman fell to her death in silence after her father threw her over Melbourne's West Gate Bridge, her older brother told police.
Darcey spent the final minutes of her life playing games with her brothers in the back of their father's four-wheel-drive.
Darcey and older brother Ben had just packed up their scooters at their grandparents' house on the Surf Coast and were heading back to Melbourne for the first day at school.
In an interview with police two days after his sister's death, the then six-year-old Ben said that at the top of the West Gate his father stopped the car and asked Darcey to move into the front seat.
His father, Arthur Phillip Freeman, then picked Darcey up, held her in his arms and threw her over the bridge.
"She didn't even scream on her, on her fall," Ben said.
"I didn't hear any scream on the way when she ... no nothing, nothing, nothing."
Freeman, 37, from Hawthorn, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his daughter and is standing trial in the Victorian Supreme Court.
He will argue that he was mentally impaired at the time.
In his interview Ben said after throwing Darcey off the bridge his father drove off and he asked him to stop.
"I said 'Go back and get her'. Dad keeps on driving along," he said.
"Then I said 'Darcey can't swim'," he said in the interview played to the jury on Wednesday.
During the interview, which was with a female police officer, Ben spoke in a matter of fact way and did not become emotional.
At times he swung his legs and arms in an almost impatient manner.
He said later they went to a "weird funny place".
The court has heard Freeman took his sons to the Commonwealth Law Court complex in central Melbourne.
All three sat in the foyer of the court, where Freeman sobbed until police arrived and arrested him.
Back at the West Gate Bridge, the dozens of motorists who witnessed the incident were coming to terms with the tragedy that had unfolded in front of their eyes.
Barry Nelson, who was on his way to work, recalls seeing the "limbs and hair of a child being flipped over the side of the bridge."
He observed Freeman walking back to his car.
"The overriding impression was, was, he was totally neutral," he said.
"It was, it was just like it was an everyday event, like he may have been posting a letter and was walking back from the post box to his vehicle, that's the only way I can describe it."
Below the bridge, water police rescued Darcey and ambulance officers performed CPR on her.
A heart rhythm returned and Darcey had a pulse for about one minute.
She died later in hospital.
One ambulance officer broke down after describing Darcey's injuries.
Among her notations were some scribbles and drawings that Darcey had made on her legs.
The trial before Justice Paul Coghlan is continuing.
Darcey spent the final minutes of her life playing games with her brothers in the back of their father's four-wheel-drive.
Darcey and older brother Ben had just packed up their scooters at their grandparents' house on the Surf Coast and were heading back to Melbourne for the first day at school.
In an interview with police two days after his sister's death, the then six-year-old Ben said that at the top of the West Gate his father stopped the car and asked Darcey to move into the front seat.
His father, Arthur Phillip Freeman, then picked Darcey up, held her in his arms and threw her over the bridge.
"She didn't even scream on her, on her fall," Ben said.
"I didn't hear any scream on the way when she ... no nothing, nothing, nothing."
Freeman, 37, from Hawthorn, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his daughter and is standing trial in the Victorian Supreme Court.
He will argue that he was mentally impaired at the time.
In his interview Ben said after throwing Darcey off the bridge his father drove off and he asked him to stop.
"I said 'Go back and get her'. Dad keeps on driving along," he said.
"Then I said 'Darcey can't swim'," he said in the interview played to the jury on Wednesday.
During the interview, which was with a female police officer, Ben spoke in a matter of fact way and did not become emotional.
At times he swung his legs and arms in an almost impatient manner.
He said later they went to a "weird funny place".
The court has heard Freeman took his sons to the Commonwealth Law Court complex in central Melbourne.
All three sat in the foyer of the court, where Freeman sobbed until police arrived and arrested him.
Back at the West Gate Bridge, the dozens of motorists who witnessed the incident were coming to terms with the tragedy that had unfolded in front of their eyes.
Barry Nelson, who was on his way to work, recalls seeing the "limbs and hair of a child being flipped over the side of the bridge."
He observed Freeman walking back to his car.
"The overriding impression was, was, he was totally neutral," he said.
"It was, it was just like it was an everyday event, like he may have been posting a letter and was walking back from the post box to his vehicle, that's the only way I can describe it."
Below the bridge, water police rescued Darcey and ambulance officers performed CPR on her.
A heart rhythm returned and Darcey had a pulse for about one minute.
She died later in hospital.
One ambulance officer broke down after describing Darcey's injuries.
Among her notations were some scribbles and drawings that Darcey had made on her legs.
The trial before Justice Paul Coghlan is continuing.
