Rylee-Rose Peverill was left to roast for more than five hours as temperatures exceeded 50C in her mother’s Toyota Prado – while her mum Laura Rose Peverill and her boyfriend watched Shameless on Netflix.
A mother who left her three-year-old daughter to die in the back seat of her car on a scorching day while watching Netflix with her boyfriend has been sentenced.
Laura Rose Peverill, 39, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of little Rylee-Rose Peverill and was jailed for seven years in the Townsville Supreme Court on Friday.
The court heard that on the morning of November 27, 2020, Peverill drove to the supermarket in her Toyota Prado with her boyfriend of just a few months after dropping her three other daughters off at school.
About 9.50am they returned to park the car in the driveway of Peverill’s house in Burdell, in Townsville’s north.
The couple collected the groceries in the 4×4 but left Rylee-Rose strapped to her seat, before going inside and watching episodes of Shameless for five hours.
Rylee-Rose (pictured with her biological father Pete Black) was left in a hot car by her mother
Peverill (pictured) watched Netflix with her new boyfriend and didn’t bring up the fact that Rylee was left in the car for five hours watching Shameless.
Rylee spent five hours and seven minutes locked in the hot car, parked in a shadeless driveway.
She was not checked once until her mother got in the car at 2:48 p.m. for the afternoon school run for her other children and found Rylee slumped in her seat.
The outside temperature varied between 30°C and 31.4°C. The temperature inside the car, measured by experts two days later in similar weather conditions, reached 51.5°C.
Crown prosecutor David Nardone said Rylee allegedly suffered headaches, intense thirst, cardiac stress, anxiety, delirium and convulsions and that there were traces of vomit in the car, reports the Townsville Bulletin.
Peverill called paramedics who transported Rylee to Townsville University Hospital where she could not be revived.
In court on Friday, Rylee’s father read a heartbreaking victim impact statement about his “bubbly, happy princess” as his partner sat next to him in the witness box.
He said that when he responded to the call about Rylee, his “world stopped spinning” and that when he rushed to the hospital, he was confronted by crying nurses and police officers , who had advised him not to see Rylee in this state.
He later said at her funeral that he apologized to her for not being there to save her.
“I would have moved mountains if I had been there,” he said.
Rylee and her sisters were all from Peverill’s relationship with her ex-husband Pete and the three older sisters are now in her care (Rylee and her three sisters pictured with her father Pete)
Mr Black said his “world stopped turning” when he learned what happened to Rylee
Peverill’s defense lawyer said she had been treated for mental health issues for years and had a drinking problem, but fully acknowledged she had failed in her duties. responsibility to Rylee.
She added that Peverill had been subjected to a torrent of online abuse due to the negligent nature of the crime.
Judge David North handed down the seven-year sentence and recommended she be placed in protective custody, as he acknowledged she could be at risk from other inmates.
She will be eligible for parole on July 3, 2025.
According to Kidsafe, more than 5,000 children are rescued each year in Australia after being left unattended in a car.
Children left in hot vehicles are at risk of heat stroke, dehydration, suffocation, life-threatening organ damage, or even death.
The interior of a car can peak at 75°C whether or not the vehicle is in the sun or left in the shade.
