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Two Queensland childcare workers responsible for leaving a child on a hot bus for six hours have avoided jail.
The three-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found unconscious on the bus outside a childcare centre in Gracemere, near Rockhampton, in May last year.
She was taken to Queensland Children’s Hospital in a critical condition but survived her injuries.
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Childcare workers Bianca Maree Reynolds, 32, and Tara Alyce Steers, 31, were both charged with grievous bodily harm.
Both pleaded guilty in the Queensland District Court in Rockhampton on Wednesday.
The three-year-old girl, who cannot be identified, was left on the bus for six hours. Credit: Supplied
Reynolds and Steers were the centre director and senior educator respectively at the time of the incident and had been on the bus that transported the girl to the centre on the morning of May 4, 2022.
The court heard the temperature inside the bus would have reached about 40C while the girl was in there from approximately 9am to 3pm.
The girl had been suffering severe heat stroke when she was found by another person, sentencing Judge Michael Rackemann said.
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“(It) caused an altered level of consciousness, and also seizure activity,” he said.
He sentenced Reynolds to three years in jail, wholly suspending the sentence for five years.
Steers received a two-year and eight-month jail sentence, also wholly suspended for five years.
The women wept as they learned they would not be going to jail on Wednesday.
A police officer examines the bus at the front of the Gracemere child care centre. Credit: 7NEWS
In a statement, the victim’s grandmother criticised the sentence.
“Where’s the justice?” the woman said.
“We have to live with this every day we look at her.
“We’re lucky she’s here.”
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