Sydney -
An Australian man threw his four-year-old daughter from a 58-metre bridge in full view of rush-hour commuters after his wife divorced him two years ago, a court was told Wednesday.
Arthur Freeman, 37, has pleaded not guilty of the murder of his daughter, Darcey, on what would have been her first day of school.
In a video interview played to the court, the victim's brother Ben, 6, told how his father stopped the car on the Melbourne bridge and calmly dropped the child over the side before driving on.
“She didn't even scream on ... her fall,” the boy said in the recording. “I said ‘Go back and get her’ (but) Dad keeps on driving along. Then I said ‘Darcey can't swim.’”
The court heard that Freeman had finalised a divorce settlement with his wife the day before Darcey's death. She was waiting to greet her daughter at the school gates and had phoned Freeman several times while he was en route.
In their final conversations, he reportedly told her to say goodbye to her children and said, “You will never see them again.”
Lawyers for Freeman are arguing that he was “not of a sane mind” and should not be tried for murder. - Sapa-dpa