The stepfather of Kiesha Weippeart has been sentenced to 16 years' jail after pleading guilty to her manslaughter.
Robert Smith, 34, made a "simple and cowardly choice" not to seek help for the critically-ill little girl after she was knocked unconscious by another person in her western Sydney home in July 2010, Justice Megan Latham said.
And when she died, he kept her body in a suitcase for five days before setting it alight and burying it in bushland, the Supreme Court in Sydney heard. He then pretended for the next eight months the little girl had gone missing.
The child was eventually reported missing from her Mt Druitt home, in western Sydney, on August 1, sparking a large-scale police search and nationwide media frenzy.
Her remains were discovered in bushland at Mt Druitt in April 2011 - on what would have been her seventh birthday - following a lengthy undercover police operation.
Smith pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the girl on the grounds of negligence and to being an accessory after the fact of murder.
Imposing a maximum 16-year sentence on Friday for both offences, Justice Latham said it was hard to envisage what more Smith could have done to increase the seriousness of his offending.
