A British father has admitted to causing the death of his toddler son while on holiday in Cyprus.
Josh Foster was charged with causing death by a reckless act after the boy fell from the fourth floor of the King Evelthon Beach Hotel and Resort in Chlorakas on 12 July.
Paphos district court was told in July that the boy, Jaxon, fell through an open window when his father was holding him around his waist and swinging him from side to side. But on Tuesday The Sun reported Foster disputes this, and says he sat his son on a window ledge while waiting for a lift, without realising the window was open.
In a short hearing at a Paphos district court, Foster, a senior accountant at KPMG, entered a guilty plea and faces a prison sentence of up to four years.
His lawyer Alexandros Alexandrou said his client decided to plead guilty late Monday, primarily to avoid a lengthy trial and spare his family from reliving the circumstances of the boy's death with detailed evidence presented in court.
A long trial would mean he was “again a victim of this tragedy,” Alexandrou said after the hearing.
“The most important thing for him is to return to his family,” he said, adding the fall was ultimately an accident.
A further hearing will take place on October 5 when the prosecutor will set out the facts of the case and the defence will present mitigation, a court official said. Alexandrou said he would appeal any sentence that gives his client the maximum penalty.
In a last-minute bid for his freedom, Foster’s legal team had petitioned the court to have the case dropped on humanitarian grounds but this was rejected by the Cyprus attorney-general, George Savvides.
Alexandrou said he would ask the court to lift travel restrictions against his client so that he can rejoin his wife and 5-year-old daughter in the UK until sentencing. The court last month allowed the defendant to attend his son’s funeral back in the UK.
“Clearly this is tragic; it’s a case where anyone, whether they’re a parent or not, can understand the stress of having lost a child,” his lawyer Alexandros Alexandrou previously said.
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