A FATHER walked from jail back to his wife and young daughter yesterday after his conviction for shaking his four-week-old son to death was quashed.
Tomas Klamo, 24, had proclaimed his innocence when a jury found him guilty in April last year, after less than a day of deliberations, of the manslaughter of his son Izaiah.
"I`ve been wrongly accused, obviously, and how can you make the verdict that quick?" he said to the jury at the time.
Yesterday, three Court of Appeal judges unanimously decided his conviction should be overturned and a verdict of not guilty entered.
They found there was not enough evidence for the jury to have reached a firm conclusion about how Izaiah died.
"Justice has been done now," Mr Klamo said on his release from prison last night.
Mr Klamo, of Melton, had pleaded not guilty at his trial but admitted he shook his crying son about a week before his death.
He told police he became "a little pissed off" and gave the boy a shake he said.
"I just shook him a little bit harder than normal, nothing too full-on.
"Once I`d done it I thought, what the f--- did I do? He`s too pure, I shouldn`t have done it."
The Supreme Court jury heard it was not until July 27, 2005, that Mr Klamo and partner Shayla woke to their son struggling to breathe and called for help.
Izaiah died of a brain injury at Sunshine Hospital. An autopsy revealed the fatal brain bleed was accompanied by a haemorrhage that was "a couple of weeks" old.
A medical expert ruled out spontaneous re-bleeding as the cause of Izaiah`s death and said he did not have injuries normally associated with being shaken, making it only a possibility.
Prosecutors told the jury Mr Klamo was a man not coping with being a first-time father and had shaken his son violently for a second time just before his death.
Mr Klamo was allowed after the verdict to spend the weekend with his wife Shayla and then 12-week-old daughter Aleeyah before he went into custody on April 23 last year.
He was later sentenced to five years` jail with a minimum of two, the judge noting the courts must protect the sanctity of human life.
But Court of Appeal President Chris Maxwell and Justices Frank Vincent and Marcia Neave said there was not enough evidence for the jury to find Mr Klamo guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
"The absence of evidence as to the cause of Izaiah`s death cannot be converted into an inference that the applicant must have caused it," Justice Neave said.
"There is neither clear evidence as to the cause of the baby`s death nor evidence that it was caused by an act of the applicant."
Mr Klamo last night said he always believed his conviction would be overturned.
"I was wrongly accused," he said after arriving at his parents` Melton home from Ararat prison in Victoria. "I`m happy that it`s all settled.
"I knew I was going to get out. I knew I was wrongly accused."
He said he was happy to be back with his wife and the daughter he has rarely seen.
His parents were overjoyed.
"I`m so happy. I`m very happy," his mother Olga said.
His father Imrich said: "It`s like someone has given him a new life."
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