American man has been jailed after killing his wife while scuba diving on their honeymoon in Australia
Pastor Dale Morgan
American man has been jailed after killing his wife while scuba diving
on their honeymoon in Australia*
AAP
June 05, 2009 03:25pm
AN American man has been jailed for four-and-a-half years after
admitting to killing his wife while scuba diving on their honeymoon in
north Queensland.
David Gabriel Watson, 32, pleaded guilty today in the Supreme Court in
Brisbane to the manslaughter of his wife, Christina, while scuba diving
on their honeymoon in north Queensland in October 2003.
He had been charged with murder, to which he pleaded not guilty, but
Crown prosecutors accepted the plea to the lesser charge, meaning he
will not face trial.
Justice Peter Lyons sentenced Watson to four-and-a-half years in jail,
suspended after 12 months.
Prosecutor Brendan Campbell told the court the manslaughter plea was
accepted on the basis that Watson had failed in his duty as Tina's dive
buddy by not giving her emergency oxygen.
Mr Campbell said Watson also allowed Tina to sink to the ocean floor
without making any serious attempt to retrieve her, and that he did not
inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt.
"He virtually extinguished any chance of her survival,'' Mr Campbell said.
Watson married Tina in a ceremony described by her friends as her dream
wedding in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 11, 2003.
Eleven days later, a dive instructor found her lying on the bottom of
the ocean during a week-long Great Barrier Reef scuba diving trip off
the coast of Townsville.
A coronial inquest into her death heard a fellow diver saw Gabe Watson
engaged in an underwater "bearhug'' with his petite wife, after which
the bubble-wrap salesman headed for the surface while his wife fell to
the ocean floor.
Coroner David Glasgow formally charged Watson with murder last June and
the American voluntarily returned to Australia in February.
The Supreme Court was today told Watson was an experienced diver who had
been trained in rescuing panicked divers.
Watson told police Tina had knocked his mask off and then had sunk too
quickly for him to retrieve her.
But the Crown rejected this explanation, saying it would not have been
possible for her to sink rapidly.
Tina's father Tommy Thomas, her sister Alanda and friend, Amanda
Phillips, flew from Alabama to Australia this week to be in court for
Watson's sentencing.