A Victorian man has broken down in tears at the Supreme Court in Hobart after a jury unanimously found him guilty of the manslaughter of 7-year-old Akira Carroll.
Akira Carroll died in August 2015 after being hit by a tree felled by Joshua George Hector Clark, 39.
Clark was on a wood hooking trip with his partner Sierra Lynd and her three children in Mount Lloyd in southern Tasmania.
At one point, Clark pulled over to chop down a tree — his defence claimed it was because it was dangerous. The prosecution argued he wanted it for firewood.
Meanwhile, Ms Lynd and her three children remained in the car.
The court earlier heard that as the tree began to fall, Clark yelled out to them to "get the f**k out of the car".
Ms Lynd managed to grab her toddler, while her 7-year-old son Akira got out of the car himself, only to be hit on the head and fatally wounded by the falling tree.
The ute was crushed.
Akira's younger sister, who was still in the car, survived, suffering only a broken collarbone.
Akira was flown to the Royal Hobart Hospital, but died the next day.
The Crown's case was that Clark had not cut the tree correctly, giving him no control over the direction it fell, and that any reasonable person would not have parked the car so close.
The defence argued there had been another cut in the tree and his behaviour did not make him criminally negligent.
What was never challenged throughout the proceedings was how much Clark cared for the little boy.
On the first day, he broke down in the dock as he was forced to relive the triple-000 calls made on the day of the incident.
As Akira's moans echoed throughout the courtroom, Clark became inconsolable, with court adjourning early that day.
He could also be heard in his first interview with police telling them how much he loved Akira and his siblings.
"I love him … I love him so much," he told police in August 2015.
"They're my kids. I look at them as my own kids."
As the jury delivered its unanimous guilty verdict on Friday, Clark and his family members dissolved into tears.
His suffering and remorse were acknowledged by the prosecution in sentencing submissions, but they argued that Clark put Akira's family through a lot by dragging the case to trial.
The prosecution also submitted that Akira's death could have been avoided if Clark had simply parked further away.
Clark will be sentenced at a later date.
