Daniel Wallis, 25, appeared in the High Court at Invercargill yesterday after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his daughter Hope Elizabeth Wallis McFall-Schultz.
Justice Melanie Harland jailed him for three years and three months.
The offending was "spontaneous" in a moment where Wallis was overwhelmed, stressed and tired from working long hours as a truck driver, his counsel Michael Vesty said.
Hope’s mother told the court she was scared to restart her life.
"You are not the man I thought you were. Everything was a lie."
Since this offending, she was using drugs again and was "in and out of police cells", she said.
"I will regret being with you for the rest of my life but I will never regret Hope. She was my world," she said.
"She had the right to expect to be loved and cared [for] by her father."
A woman who was a grandmother figure to Hope described her distress about being unable to see her granddaughter grow up.
"I believe she had a bright future ahead of her, and we are never going to be a part of that because of one person," she said with teary eyes.
The court heard this was the woman Wallis had first called after the attack.
"The day Hope was hurt continues to haunt me," she said.
The 5-month-old had been born three months prematurely and was transferred to Dunedin Hospital’s neonatal unit shortly after her birth.
She was released from the hospital on December 21, 2021.
One month later, Hope’s mother fed her and read her a book before settling her into her bassinet and leaving Wallis in charge.
The defendant made a call to Hope’s grandmother figure, saying the baby would not stop crying.
In a frantic later video-call, he told the woman he had dropped Hope and within five minutes said she was not breathing.
When the woman arrived, she saw Hope was unresponsive, limp, pale and bleeding from her nose.
She rushed her to the hospital while Wallis cleaned the scene.
The defendant initially claimed his baby had wriggled out of his arms while he was trying to feed her and landed head first on a bottle on the floor.
He saw she was bleeding from her mouth and possibly her nose.
The sight of the blood made him vomit in the sink, accidentally hitting Hope’s head on the bench, he said.
A post mortem revealed his daughter’s head injuries did not match the explanation Wallis had given.
He later admitted: "Hope was forcefully smacked around the head, with an open hand, two or three times", which was consistent with a pathologist’s report.
Counsel Michael Vesty acknowledged the defendant’s initial reluctance to admit his wrongdoings.
"While the truth came out, it did not come out as quickly as it ought to have," he said.
"By not telling the full truth, he potentially jeopardised Hope’s hospital treatment.
"There will be no moving on for Mr Wallis ... these events will be with him for life."
Crown Prosecutor Riki Donnelly said "this was not a case of historic, ongoing abuse".
He accepted the man had no prior convictions and the offending had been a moment of "spontaneous aggression".
Wallis’ mother described him as "very soft and easy to push around" and was concerned prison would be detrimental to her son.
Justice Harland said: "The sentence imposed today does not put a value on Hope’s life. That is incalculable".
She said Hope had a beautiful name and encouraged those who knew her to reflect upon its meaning.
"My hope for you is that you keep her memory alive," she said.
