When Shaylan Gallagher sees a bright sunflower, she is taken back to the day her daughter Leah arrived in the world.
"When she was born, the first little onesie that we put on her had little sunflowers all over it," she said.
"Her nickname has always been 'Sunflower'.
"At her funeral we all wore little pin sunflowers.
But Leah never leaves her mother's mind.
She was nine months old when she drowned in a bathtub at her father's Hervey Bay home on April 2 last year.
Last month Daniel James Gallagher, 27, pleaded guilty to manslaughter for leaving her unsupervised in the water.
Today he was sentenced in the Supreme Court in Brisbane, where he learned he would spend 15 months in prison.
'Beyond reckless'
The court heard Gallagher had initially left the bathroom to inspect an electrical issue outside the house before smoking a cigarette and then using his phone in the living room.
When he returned several minutes later, he saw his daughter "floating face-down" in the overflowing tub.
He immediately called triple-0 and attempted to resuscitate her, the court heard.
Crown prosecutor Chris Cook told the court there was "no doubt" Gallagher was remorseful, but said his daughter's death was "not an accident".
"It was beyond reckless," Mr Cook said.
"This was more than inattention.
The court heard Gallagher did not have a criminal history, but there had been a similar recent incident where he had left his daughter unattended in 10-12 centimetres of water.
Defence lawyer Andrew Hoare told the court his client had been "distracted by extraneous, irrelevant matters" and failed to identify the risk of drowning, but there were "worse examples" of negligence.
"This does remain, however, an offence of omission rather than direct or deliberate harm," he said.
Gallagher had been on bail and was handed a five-year sentence to be suspended after serving less than a third of the jail term.
Good Friday tragedy
Shaylan and Daniel Gallagher were high school sweethearts, but they separated in August 2020.
Ms Gallagher does not know if she will ever come to terms with what happened, but she constantly relives it in her mind.
"I got a phone call from Daniel saying that Leah's unconscious, get over here right away and that the ambulance is here doing CPR," she said.
"I started screaming and bawling my eyes out.
"I didn't really get a chance to ask him what happened."
Ms Gallagher and her son have moved away from family and friends for a fresh start in Brisbane.
"He talks about her a lot," she said.
"There was one time when we were driving in the car, we weren't talking and he wasn't provoked, but he just started crying and saying that he missed her.
'Cherish every moment'
Ms Gallagher hopes her daughter's death will raise more awareness around child safety.
"It's about following your gut feeling," she said.
"If you feel that your child is not safe somewhere, act on it.
"I think it is just a constant reminder that you have your motherly instincts for a reason."
She also has a message for other parents.
"Cherish every moment with your kids — even in the hard times when you know they're having a moment and they just need a cuddle to calm, or when they're coming to you in times of distress or in times of happiness," she said.
"Just be there in the moment.
