Alleged toddler torturer faces rape charge

1:20p.m. 16 May 2008

New charges, including one of rape, have today been laid against the man accused of torturing and assaulting a toddler in Maroochydore.

The 22-year-old Mooloolaba student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared again briefly in Maroochydore Magistrates Court this morning.

He faced a charge of rape and two more counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, all relating to the same incident on Monday.

The man had already been charged with four counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, one count of grievous bodily harm and one count of torture against the two-year-old boy.

No application for bail was made today, and the defendant was remanded in custody to appear again on May 27.

The charges arose after police were called to a scene opposite Sizzler restaurant on Aerodrome Road on Monday, where the man initially claimed the child’s pram had been hit by a car.

The toddler’s mother, who had previously been in a relationship with the man, had left her two-year-old in his care while she shopped nearby.

The child was taken to Nambour Hospital and later airlifted to Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane in a serious condition.

Solicitor Alicia Thomas, from Greenhalgh Pickard Solicitors, told the court on Tuesday that her client had been seeing a psychiatrist and she asked that he be assessed immediately by prison mental health services

She said her client had agreed to the assessment and a mental health nurse at the court confirmed she was already writing a referral.