A toddler drowned in the Hawkesbury River while travelling Australia by yacht with her parents and 10 siblings, & more in News in 5.

With AAP.

1. A toddler drowned in the Hawkesbury River while travelling Australia by yacht with her parents and 10 siblings.

The three-year-old who drowned after disappearing off a boat on the Hawkesbury River has been identified as Zeinobiyah Soetekouw.

Nicknamed Zobbie by her parents Steve and Beccie Soetekouw, she was playing with her 10 siblings on her family’s yacht which was moored at Brooklyn, north of Sydney, on Tuesday afternoon.

Emergency services were called at 12.45pm on Tuesday following reports a child had gone missing from a boat.

Zeinobiyah Soetekouw
The Soetekouw family. Image: Facebook.

Water police located Zobbie about 100 metres away in the river a short time later and commenced CPR, a spokeswoman said. It is believed she had been floating for about 20 minutes.

She was airlifted to the Children's Hospital at Westmead in a critical condition but was pronounced dead on arrival.

The entire Soetekouw family, from rural Tasmania, had been travelling on their seven-metre yacht Sumbawa for two years, documenting their travels on a Facebook page titled 'Our Round the World Adventure'.

Family friend Andrea Stebbins told 7NEWS Zobbie's death was "devastating".

"I know the older ones had a lot to do with the younger ones," she said.

"They had a buddy system."

Paramedics described the scene as chaotic and emotional.

"It's a gut-wrenching incident," NSW Ambulance Superintendent Jordan Emery told the Seven Network.

"These paramedics are mothers and fathers themselves, they have siblings, nephews, nieces that same age and we're not immune form that incredible suffering that accompanies jobs like this."


A report into the death will be prepared for the coroner.

2. A four-year-old boy from Adelaide has been found after an eight-month search.

A missing four-year-old Adelaide boy who hadn't been seen by his father for eight months has been found safe and well after an Australia-wide search.

Australian Federal Police on Monday revealed they had been searching for Thomas Alexander Bakyrey, who was believed to be with his 38-year-old mother Sarah Elizabeth Tate.

He was found on Tuesday, the AFP said in a brief statement on Wednesday.

Media reports claim he was found in Launceston, Tasmania with his mother, who has been arrested.

Thomas' father, Sergiy Bakyrey, last saw his son at Kurralta Park last October.

3. A woman has told the Royal Commission into Aged Care she found maggots in her mothers' wound.

A woman has told how maggots were found in a wound in her mother's heel shortly before her death which had been left untreated for months in a Melbourne aged care home.

Anamaria Ng wept while telling the Royal Commission into Aged Care about how horrified she was about had happened to her mother Annunziata Santoro.

The Assisi Centre nursing unit manager Jamuna Jacob had tried to stop her GP Eric Tay telling Ms Ng and other family members about the maggots, she said.

Dr Tay confirmed that on Wednesday.

Mrs Santoro, who had dementia, died only days later at the age of 94 in October 2018 with a bone infection in her heel contributing to her death, according to Dr Tay.

The wound was allowed to deteriorate for at least two months before the family or Dr Tay were told about it, the commission heard.

Assisi staff told Ms Ng and Dr Tay that Mrs Santoro's increasing agitation was a behavioural problem, that she was "not in much pain at all" and did not give her painkillers over three months as the wound became a bone infection.


That mistake led to Dr Tay prescribing anti-psychotic medicine she did not need.

It also led to Ms Ng and her two brothers paying extra for physiotherapy for their mother that included weight bearing exercises that would have added to her excruciating pain.

Her last days were spent in pain and heavily sedated, which also resulted in rapid weight loss that Assisi did not address, an emotional Ms Ng said.

Ms Jacob had made light of the maggots and blamed it on family members who had taken her on a day trip, she said.

"I was appalled that she was essentially not prepared to take responsibility for what happened," Ms Ng told the Royal Commission.

She relocated her mother to palliative care elsewhere but Mrs Santoro died within a couple of days.

"At this point my mother's management had been so poor, her pain management and her care and I had just completely lost faith," said Ms Ng.

"I just wanted her out of there.

"I believe would still be alive today if her pain and care had been properly managed."

She contacted the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, also angry about repeated falls and another infection when staples were not removed after hip surgery.

The aged care commissioner made scathing findings of "significant gaps" in Mrs Santoro's care, including them not telling the family or doctor about the heel wound "until it was too late".

"It's really hard to imagine a more serious finding being made about an organisation that exists solely to provide care for elderly people isn't it?" Counsel assisting the commissioner Peter Rozen asked Assisi's chairman Don Smarrelli.

"Correct, it is," Mr Smarrelli replied.

The not for profit organisation was doing a "root cause analysis" to "ensure that this type of incident or any incident for that matter never occurs again", he said.

Assisi's CEO at the time - who cannot be named - was recently sacked, having been accused by Mr Smarrelli of withholding information and possibly misleading the royal commission.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency are investigating Ms Jacob and another unit manager, Anna Yow.

4. A Sydney man spat at jurors after he was found guilty of murdering his nephew.


A Sydney man has spat at jurors and labelled them "pigs" after they found him guilty of murdering his nephew in an "honour killing" over an extramarital affair.

The 50-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had denied murdering his nephew by shooting him seven times with a semi-automatic weapon at the entrance of a home in western Sydney in 2015.

The Crown had alleged the 23-year-old victim spent hours in an intimate "meeting" with his aunt - the accused's wife - before he was fatally shot in the head and heart.

The victim came from overseas to move into the Sydney home of the older man and his wife as part of a plan to marry their daughter - the victim's cousin.

The 11-person NSW Supreme Court jury spent more than a week deliberating before Justice Peter Johnson directed them on Wednesday they could return a 10-1 verdict if need be.

As the defendant was found guilty, he collapsed before regaining his feet and hurling abuse at the jury.

"I'm innocent, I didn't kill him," he shouted repeatedly.

"I'm like you, I'm Australian."

He then spat across the courtroom in the direction of the jury and started abusing Justice Johnson too.

"You helped them, you gave them the chance to find me guilty.

"You f***ing pigs.

"You helped them, you are police dogs."

After multiple sheriffs forcibly removed him from the courtroom, he could be heard banging on walls, yelling and groaning loudly.

Justice Johnson said he understood a criminal trial places pressure on all involved but the guilty man's "torrent of abuse" tended to provide an insight into him.

The Crown had alleged the older man found out about his wife's affair with his nephew and developed a motive to kill because it breached "the honour code".


The nephew moved out but persisted with the affair, later telling police he was being followed and wanted to take out intervention orders against the uncle.

The Crown alleged that though no one saw him murder the man, the uncle tracked down his nephew's new home and lay in wait between a brick fence and a pine tree near his door.

When the victim returned from the intimate meeting with his aunt, the uncle shot him six times in the head and once in his heart.

The Crown alleged one bullet was shot - based on the blood spatter pattern on the wall - as the victim lay slumped on the home's tiled entrance and with his car keys still in his hand.

The aunt's DNA was also allegedly found on swabs of the nephew's genitals, palm and wrist.

It was also alleged the killer spent more than $2500 on tracking the location of his wife and nephew in the weeks before the murder.

"I trusted you with my wife and children," the killer sent via text in the hours before the killing.

Justice Johnson, who said he'd never seen an accused person abuse a jury in such a manner, told the jurors he agreed with their verdict.

"In my view, this was a very strong circumstantial case," he said.

"His behaviour shows the type of explosive personality that may shed light on the circumstances as to why he committed this crime."

The uncle will be sentenced at a later date.

The jurors were excused from jury service for 12 years and encouraged to seek court-funded counselling.

5. Men in Black actor Rip Torn has died at the age 88.




No cause of death was given.

















00:00 / ???