{"id":4799,"date":"2026-05-05T01:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/4799\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:54:09","slug":"jefferson-lewis-excused-from-first-court-appearance-since-5yo-kumanjayi-little-babys-alleged-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/4799\/","title":{"rendered":"Jefferson Lewis excused from first court appearance since 5yo Kumanjayi Little Baby’s alleged murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the image of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of her family.<\/p>\n

The man accused of murdering five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby has been excused from appearing in court in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n

Jefferson Lewis was expected to face Alice Springs Local Court on Tuesday morning via a video link from Darwin, but his lawyer, Mitchell Donaldson from Legal Aid NT, requested he be excused.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The five-year-old’s family has requested that she be referred to as Kumanjayi Little Baby. (Supplied: NT Police)<\/p>\n

Mr Lewis is charged with one count of murder and two other charges that cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.<\/p>\n

Judge Anthony Hopkins began court proceedings by acknowledging the child’s family.<\/p>\n

“I begin by acknowledging the deep loss of Kumanjayi Little Baby and the family’s call for justice to take its course,” he said.Live stream cancelled, matter adjourned<\/p>\n

Earlier this morning, the courtroom was closed to the public and journalists to allow some time for legal discussions between defence and prosecution.<\/p>\n

The public and a large contingent of local and interstate media were granted access to the gallery after those private discussions, but no members of Kumanjayi Little Baby’s family were present in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

However, as lawyers and media were leaving the courtroom, several of the girl’s family members were seen arriving.<\/p>\n

Due to a high level of national interest in the case, today’s court appearance was supposed to be broadcast live via a link shared by the NT Courts social media account \u2014 however, due to technical difficulties, the public live stream was cancelled.<\/p>\n

“It is unfortunate that this has happened at late notice, but staff have been unable to fix issues this morning that were unforeseen,” an NT Courts spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mr Lewis’s court mention follows his arrest on Saturday, with NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole saying detectives had been working “around the clock” to lay charges.<\/p>\n

It comes after the five-year-old girl went missing from an Alice Springs town camp last month, sparking an extensive search. Her remains were discovered after five days.<\/p>\n

In court today, prosecutor Patrick Williams requested a lengthy adjournment to allow time for an extensive brief of evidence to be put together.<\/p>\n

\"Signage<\/p>\n

Today’s proceedings took place in Alice Springs. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)<\/p>\n

“Your Honour will appreciate there has been a very substantial police investigation into this matter, but there will be a very large amount of material on this brief,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Williams told the court the brief would include “a whole lot” of citizen statements and forensic evidence.<\/p>\n

The case will return to court on July 30.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the image of an Indigenous person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6093,1518,6092,22,21,6095,6094,6091,1515,5428,3337,5425,5426,5427,6090,6089,2770,1514,2763],"class_list":{"0":"post-4799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-5-year-old-girl-alice-springs","9":"tag-alice-springs","10":"tag-alice-springs-jefferson-lewis","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-austrlia","13":"tag-court-live","14":"tag-court-livestream","15":"tag-five-year-old-girl","16":"tag-jefferson-lewis","17":"tag-jefferson-lewis-charges","18":"tag-kumanjayi-little-baby","19":"tag-lewis-jefferson","20":"tag-little-baby-alice-springs","21":"tag-little-girl-missing-alice-springs","22":"tag-livestream","23":"tag-missing-child","24":"tag-murder","25":"tag-sharon-granites","26":"tag-town-camp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}