A Queensland father who left his three-year-old daughter to die in a Brisbane unit three days after punching her so hard he ruptured her bowel has been jailed.
Matthew Lee Williamson was sentenced to nine years' prison in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday for the manslaughter of his daughter Kyhesha-Lee Joughin in March 2013.
Williamson, 32, will have to serve 80 per cent of his sentence before being eligible for parole after Justice Roslyn Atkinson deemed Kyhesha's death a serious violent offence.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis he failed to seek medical attention for the toddler, but denied causing her fatal injury.
However, Justice Atkinson rejected that denial and said she was satisfied Williamson delivered a punch to his daughter's abdomen some time on March 28, 2013, that perforated her bowel.
He and his flatmate Christopher Kent, who has already been sentenced for the toddler's manslaughter, then spent three days taking drugs and refusing to seek medical treatment for Kyhesha as her condition deteriorated, Justice Atkinson said.
"Her death was not inevitable," Justice Atkinson told the court.
"Her physical injuries could have been treated."
Justice Atkinson said Kyhesha had to live in a "depraved and disgusting environment" in the unit her father shared with Kent.
She was regularly locked in her bedroom by a rope which Williamson would tie to her door and his bed, sometimes for 17 hours a day.
"Your treatment of your daughter was occasionally loving but mostly cruel and callous," Justice Atkinson said.
"You should have put her welfare above all else."
Williamson's family as well as Kyhesha's grandparents and mother were in the gallery for the sentencing.
Many wept as the details of her death were read out by Justice Atkinson.