STEPHEN CUNNINGHAM TO BE RELEASED SOON IN 2017 DESPITE MULTIPLE BREACHES IN CITY

In July 2017, Stephen Cunningham is set to be released once again in the coming weeks, despite having breached his orders multiple times in the past.

Back in November 1999, a tragic case shocked the community—how could a loving father be responsible for killing his own child? Lisa Gearing sits on her sofa with her nearly one-year-old son Jake, who sleeps peacefully beside her in his buggy. On top of the television are several color photographs of baby Steven, her first child. She gestures toward them and recalls, “When I got pregnant with him, my partner Stephen and I were so happy. We’d been trying for a long time to have a baby.”

At the time, Lisa was 17, and Stephen Cunningham was 19. Their relationship had briefly split a few months prior, partly due to frustrations over their inability to conceive and because Stephen had been drinking heavily. However, they reconciled and tried again, and Lisa soon discovered she was pregnant once more. "Steve changed his life. He more or less stopped drinking," she explains. "He fed Steven, changed his nappies, and cared for him a lot when I went out with my mum or to the shops."

Yet, within two months of Steven’s birth, Lisa became pregnant again. She describes her feelings: “This time it was quite different. When I told Stephen, there was no reaction. It was like a slap in the face. He didn’t want to talk about it much after that. He wasn’t working and maybe worried about how we’d manage. But why didn’t he say anything?” She also wonders why Stephen didn’t inform her when he was feeling troubled and refused to care for the baby that night last May when Lisa went to the bingo hall. “I settled Steven, who was a very easy baby. He did wake sometimes and cry, but Stephen had always been good at soothing him.”

The evening took a tragic turn when, soon after 9 pm, Lisa received a phone call from Stephen’s father, informing her that the baby was experiencing breathing problems. When she called Stephen, he became hysterical. “He kept saying ‘the baby’s not breathing… I’ve bruised him trying to resuscitate him,” she recalls. “Even then, he was making it up. Then he just shouted ‘the baby’s dead!’” Both Lisa and Stephen were brought in for questioning. Lisa was released after a few days, but Stephen was detained. Initially charged with manslaughter, Stephen admitted that he had shaken baby Steven because he was crying.

An autopsy revealed a scene of horrific injuries: 47 bruises, two fractured femurs, a severely ruptured liver torn loose, and severe brain damage. Police believed the child had been violently battered rather than just shaken. The evidence of brutal assault led the jury, after hearing about the child’s injuries, to convict Steven of murder by an 11-to-one majority.

While Stephen Cunningham was on remand, Lisa gave birth to Jake in November. During Stephen’s detention, they exchanged letters until Lisa eventually asked him to cease communication. The trial began in January, and Lisa attended daily, seeking understanding about that dreadful night. Stephen Cunningham was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 10 years.

Lisa feels only anger and hatred toward him. “I’d like to see him hanged,” she says. She knows she will one day have to explain everything to Jake, who looks “the spit” of his father, about his older brother Steven’s tragic fate. She once had a mane of curls, but she chopped her hair short after the verdict. Looking with enormous eyes and a face framed by a very short haircut, she asks, “How could he kill his own child?” This question—how a father could commit such an act—resonates with many, especially given the chilling frequency of fathers murdering their own children, a horror that has become disturbingly common in recent times.