Watson jail term extended for dive death

A US scuba diver who left his wife to sink and die on the ocean floor has had his
one-year jail term extended by six months in a decision expected to provoke fresh
grief for the woman's family.
The six-month extension was sealed after appeal court judges split over the state
government's call for a much tougher sentence.
David Gabriel Watson, 32, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife, Christina
(Tina), while scuba diving off the north Queensland Coast on their honeymoon in
October 2003.
Tina was pulled from the ocean floor by a dive instructor after her husband failed
to inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights to bring her to the surface, instead
leaving her to get help.
The cause of death was recorded as drowning.
The Alabama bubble-wrap salesman was sentenced to four and a half years' jail in
June, to be suspended after 12 months.
Friday's Court of Appeal two-to-one split decision means Watson's head sentence
remains at four and a half years, but it won't be suspended until after 18 months.
Walter Sofronoff, QC, appearing for Attorney-General Cameron Dick, argued to the
Queensland Court of Appeal in July that a seven-year head sentence, requiring Watson
to serve two-and-a-half years, would be more appropriate.
He told the court that Watson, an experienced diver trained in rescuing panicked
divers, had given five different stories as to what happened when his wife got into
trouble.
But defence counsel Martin Burns, SC, argued his client had made a split-second
decision to seek help on the surface, which had in hindsight been wrong.
In his written judgment, Chief Justice Paul de Jersey said he believed Watson should
be given longer than an 18-month jail term because he contributed to his wife's
death in "criminally derelict circumstances".
"The respondent pleaded guilty not just to causing his wife's death negligently, but
criminally negligently," Justice de Jersey wrote.
"And that warrants this court's at least doubling the penalty effectively visited
upon him by the sentencing court."
However, Justice de Jersey wrote that he couldn't double the sentence because
Justice John Muir had dismissed the appeal, and Justice Richard Chesterman would
increase the suspension by only six months.
"In these circumstances, to secure an operative order of the court, I am prepared to
join in an order for suspension after 18 months," he wrote.
In Justice Chesterman's written judgment, he said a six-month extension was
"substantial".
"The reason I would impose the longer term is that 12 months' custody is an
insufficient denunciation of the respondent's abandonment of his wife," he wrote.
Justice Muir disagreed with his colleagues.
"Minds may well differ as to whether the suspension of the four-and-a-half year
sentence after 12 months was overly generous," Justice Muir wrote.
"However the sentence imposed, in my respectful opinion, was not so substantially
different from any sentence which ought to have been imposed."
Premier Anna Bligh told reporters she was pleased the appeal had been successful to
an extent, but understood Tina Watson's family would be devastated by the outcome.
"We have the seen the penalty increased, but I can understand why this family will
be feeling more grief today and my thoughts are with them," Ms Bligh said.
"Any family in the circumstance this family is in would be feeling a great deal of
grief and they would not be happy with this outcome.
"We took the attorney-general's appeal and it has been successful, not as much as we
would have liked, but ultimately as government, we will accept the decision of the
courts."
Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek also had mixed feelings about the result.
"Most Queenslanders would've thought - did think - that (sentence) was manifestly
inadequate and clearly that is some redemption, but of course not for the family
involved," Mr Langbroek said.