The lawyer for a British father who pleaded guilty to a charge of negligence in the fatal fall of his 3-year-old son from a hotel window in Cyprus has asked for his client to be spared a prison sentence, saying his loss was punishment enough.
According to evidence heard in court, the 38-year-old defendant Josh Foster, his son and father-in-law got ready for dinner after a day at the pool and were making their way to the elevator from their fourth-floor room at the King Evelthon hotel on 12 July. Foster proceeded to lift the child to check out the hotel's waterpark visible from a window when the boy somehow slipped and tumbled 12 metres (around 40 feet), falling to his death.
His lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, told the Paphos District Court on Tuesday that his client's guilty plea acknowledges a momentary lapse of judgment but that he wasn't “willfully negligent.”
“That fraction of a second will haunt him for the rest of his life,” Alexandrou told judge Froso Christodoulidou during mitigation proceedings. “This is punishment he and his family will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
Alexandrou said Foster didn’t recall the circumstances of the fall due to it happening so quickly. However, he and his father-in-law had told investigators that they thought the glass window pane was shut.
The defendant, sitting in the dock, was visibly upset and constantly wiped tears from his eyes as the translator next to him recounted the details. Foster’s parents were also sitting in the rear of the courtroom, with his mother's eyes red from weeping.
Addressing the judge, Alexandrou said he wasn't arguing that the defendant be absolved of responsibility but that the court must consider “what kind of mistake was made at that point in time.”
“Justice can be served without imposing the utmost severity in sentencing,” Alexandrou said.
Prosecutor Chryso Perganti said that the boy was pronounced dead in hospital a couple of hours after his fall, having suffered multiple skull and bone fractures and damage to his vital organs.
He also said a blood sample taken from Foster roughly six hours after the boy's fall showed that he had consumed alcohol but was under the legal limit. However, experts estimated that this blood alcohol level at the time of the fall may have been more than twice the legal limit.
Alexandrou countered that the defendant's alcohol consumption had no bearing on the case because there's nothing to suggest that he was impaired at the time of the incident.
The lawyer told the judge that his client, an auditor at KPMG, risks losing his job because of the disciplinary hearing and the prison sentence. He also said even if the sentence is suspended, the man could lose his license to practice.
The charge carries a maximum of four years’ imprisonment and a minimum of a fine. Imprisonment can be suspended if the sentence is three years’ imprisonment or less.
Judge Christodoulidou said she would rule on the matter on 16 October.
Cyprus, a former British colony, is very popular with tourists from the UK, who make up a significant portion of the roughly four million holidaymakers the island nation received in recent years.
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