A court has heard that a family in Queensland was anticipating lunch together when they heard their mother cry out and discovered her dead on the laundry floor.
Giustina Katerina Lawlor, 53, was initially believed to have died from a blood clot by the authorities, but a subsequent scan revealed a bullet wound in her belly.
Cristian Dino Charles Lawlor, the 22-year-old son of Mrs. Lawlor, was accused of manslaughter.
Lawlor reported to the police that on May 7, 2021, he had left a live round in a gun barrel and put it in a bag in the family’s Taigum garage in the northern suburbs of Brisbane.
Lawlor’s mother moved and picked up the bag the following day. The old, partly disassembled gun was left in a position where it could fire at any time with a slight bump.
With her family members gathered around her, Mrs. Lawlor passed away in her husband’s arms after the bullet damaged multiple internal organs.
On Tuesday, Lawlor appeared before the Brisbane Supreme Court and entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge of using a weapon in a way that could have resulted in harm or death.
In addition, he entered a guilty plea to charges of illegally possessing a drug pipe, methamphetamine, and a pistol along with ammunition and a telescopic baton.
Despite having little experience with firearms, Lawlor, now 24 years old, has been refurbishing the family relic weapon, according to Clayton Wallis, the crown prosecutor.
“One of the poor choices he engaged in was restoring it to operability and another choice was storing it, albeit disassembled, in a bag other people had access,” Wallis stated.
According to Wallis, Lawlor’s final poor decision to leave a cartridge in the gun served as the foundation for the accusation of dangerous behaviour with a weapon. In her victim impact statement, Lawlor’s elder sister stated that the lawsuit and the publicity it generated had prevented the family from fully grieving for a loss they would always feel.
“I wish for today to be the last day that my brother is seen as a defendant and he is a victim and we can go out and live for our mother’s name,” she stated.
James Godbolt, Lawlor’s attorney, described the case as very awful and said it contained circumstances that were unusual in many ways.
“My client’s erroneous belief was that in its state it was incapable of being fired,” he stated.
If granted parole, Godbolt stated that Lawlor will pursue drug and mental health therapy. Guns are not toys, according to Judge Sue Brown, and while Lawlor had committed severe crimes, he had also expressed a great deal of regret and cooperated with the police and legal system.
“Whatever sentence I impose upon you will fade into insignificance compared to the sentence you have placed on yourself,” Brown stated.
Lawlor was given a two and a half year prison sentence, but he was freed on parole right away. In the event that Lawlor was tempted to violate his parole, Brown advised him to consider what his mother would have wanted by looking at a picture of her.
