FOR months he worked by day and drank by night.

His evenings were spent at a poker table, beer in hand, until he was drunk enough to go home and face the woman he thought of as "lazy'' and a "whinger''.

He never saw his little girl and boy, couldn't remember the last time he heard them cry or watched them have their dinner.

He walked by their door up to a dozen times a day - but had not been inside the twins' room since the day he moved their furniture in.

Had he gone inside, he would have seen their tiny skeletal frames carrying half the weight of a normal 18-month-old, both left to starve to death inside their cots.

Yesterday, the man who described himself as a "piss-poor father'' discovered the price of his negligence when Justice Peter Lyons sentenced him to eight years behind bars.

The 33-year-old, who cannot be named under Queensland law, pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter after originally being charged with murder.

The twins' tiny bodies were discovered on June 16, 2008, when their 11-year-old sister opened the door to their room to investigate the "putrid'' smell coming from inside.

They had been dead a week when the young girl approached the cot containing her baby sister's body and wiggled her leg to see if she was alive.

Justice Lyons said the man had been a "reasonably good father'' until his relationship with the children's mother fell apart.

He dropped the children off at school, did most of the household shopping and played with the new babies.

But by the time the twins reached their first birthday, the relationship was falling apart.

He began spending more and more time away from their home in Brisbane's south, drank to extremes and spent weeks without setting eyes on the babies.

He slept in a separate room and rarely spoke to anyone.

His partner, left home alone with six children almost constantly, began to complain that she wasn't coping.

The court heard she fell into depression, an illness that had plagued her in the past, and took to playing avatar game Second Life for hours at a time.

She stopped showering and cleaning, spending days in her pyjamas. She fed her babies formula from the bottle because it was easier than preparing the solids they needed.

The house became filthy. Dirty clothes mouldered in the laundry and insects moved in and took over.

"I thought she was just chasing attention … always whinging and crying,'' he would later tell police.

Justice Lyons said the man also accused her of "simply being lazy''.

"That was your way of describing her rather than acknowledging that she might be having difficulties and indeed might be suffering from depression,'' he said.

"Your partner was opposed to your absence from the home, in particular, your lack of assistance with the family. Nevertheless you continued with a lifestyle that suited you.''

By June, it had been five months since he had last fed the twins solid food - or seen anyone feed them solid food.

He could not remember the last time he'd seen them have a bath and could not remember hearing them cry.

His partner's mother asked him to check on the babies. She was worried they weren't being looked after, that her daughter wasn't coping.

He walked past their door every day but still didn't go in. He told police he was scared he might wake them up.

Defence barrister Greg McGuire said by this time it would have been too late - the twins were already dead.

Mr McGuire argued his client's actions were on a different level to the woman who, although mentally unwell, knowingly let them starve.

"In my submission, the basis of his criminality is substantially different (to that of the mother),'' he said.

"He is, in his own terms, a bad father.

"He wouldn't be the only father to have limited contact with his children.''

But Justice Lyons said the man, who was described as "narcissistic and anti-social'', displayed behaviour akin to "wilful blindness''.

The man's sentence of eight years matched that of his ex-partner, who was told last month she would be eligible for parole immediately, having already served five years in custody.

He will be eligible for parole in March, 2017.

Outside court, his emotional mother said she would continue to support her son.

"Justice has been done I can't do nothing more about it,'' she said.

"I'd still describe him as a good person.

"It's something that's happened.

"People can't judge people fully because they don't know how they lived, you know, and what they did.''

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