"Kiara deserved justice. She deserved a response from the court that recognised the irreversible impact of this violent choice," the grieving loved ones of Kiara Ferguson told AAP.
"A lenient sentence sends a dangerous message: that a life taken in the context of persistent domestic violence is somehow worth less".
The 27-year-old woman was six months' pregnant in April 2023 when one of her two little girls found a handmade spring gun inside a cavity of the couch at their family home in Shepparton, regional Victoria.
The firearm had been made by her partner of 10 years and father to her children, Adam Winmar, "for protection" as he was paranoid due to his drug abuse issues, the Supreme Court was told.
Winmar left the loaded gun inside a couch in their living room next to where his children would play.
Ms Ferguson grabbed the firearm from her four-year-old girl and marched to the back where Winmar was on the toilet.
"What have I told you about this?" she told him.
She then dropped the 12-gauge pipe gun onto the tiled bathroom floor, and tragically a single shot went into her head.
Ms Ferguson died, and Winmar was given a three-month jail term and 12-month community corrections order on Friday.
He pleaded guilty to reckless conduct endangering life and possessing a firearm as a prohibited person, after prosecutors withdrew a negligent manslaughter charge before it went to trial.
Justice Michael Croucher said Winmar's offending had endangered his children's lives as well as Ms Ferguson's.
"It was a profoundly stupid thing to do," he said.
A months-long sentence was imposed, despite the judge being told on Friday that Winmar was continuing to abuse drugs this week.
Winmar also had a lengthy criminal history and continued to offend after Ms Ferguson's death, including committing assault and choking, for which he was given a four-month jail term in April.
After completing this term, and while on a community corrections order, he committed an affray in public while holding a meat cleaver.
But Justice Croucher ultimately found Winmar's experience of losing his partner, not being allowed to see his children and his "extreme guilt and devastation" over what he did, were their own forms of punishment.
Winmar was taken into custody after the hearing to begin serving his three-month prison term.
Upon his release he must perform community work and undergo treatment for drug and alcohol issues at a residential facility.
Outside court, Ms Ferguson's family said they were "utterly devastated" not only over her death, but by the lenient sentence imposed.
"The minimal punishment handed down by Justice Croucher does not reflect the seriousness of the crime or the magnitude of the life that was taken," they said in a statement.
"Kiara was killed in an act of domestic violence - an act that preventable, and final.
"Yet the sentence fails to acknowledge the full gravity of what was done to her, her daughters, to us, and to our community."
The family said they were speaking not just for Keira but for all victims of domestic violence "whose lives are treated as footnotes in the legal system".
"We ask that her memory be honoured with the seriousness and justice she deserved in life and in death," they said.
Issued raised included Winmar's positive assessment for a corrections order despite never having completed one, his offending after Ms Ferguson's death, his use of "Aboriginality as a defence" and failures by authorities to act on domestic violence "red flags" before her death.
"We are a strong and proud Aboriginal family, so the suggestion that Aboriginality could somehow mitigate or explain this violence is not only illogical, it is offensive," the Fergusons said.
"To see our identity invoked in this way is distressing and entirely inconsistent with the cultural values we uphold."
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