An alternative therapy practitioner who urged a boy's parents to withhold conventional medicine or else he won't benefit from the traditional treatment will spend at least three years in prison.
The man who promoted a 'self-healing' practice which prioritised non-medical interventions over conventional medicine was re-sentenced after successfully appealing his initial jail term over the boy's death.
Judge Donna Woodburne on Friday sentenced the man to a total of nine years and six months in prison, with the sentence expiring in October 2026 after it was backdated to April 2017.
Judge Woodburne said the man's "inexcusable actions" amounted to criminal negligence of the very gross kind that caused the death of another human being.
"He must be adequately punished for offence, made accountable for his actions, and his conduct must be denounced," she said.
The man used his authority to persuade the boy's parents to continue on the path of alternative therapy or else the treatment wouldn't work, despite witnessing firsthand the boy's deteriorating health, the judge said.
"(The mum) had come to rely on him for guidance and instruction on boy's condition," she said.
In her sentencing, Judge Woodburne took into consideration the man's actions had not been planned and the "more onerous" experience he faced in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic where he would spend the majority of the week in his cell.
But she was not satisfied the man has shown remorse, which was why "no penalty other imprisonment was appropriate".
"He has not accepted responsibility and has not acknowledged his role in the offending," she said.
The man will be eligible for parole in October 2023.
