Father heard voices before killing nine-month-old baby at Tweed Heads

A father heard voices telling him to kidnap a baby and drown it years before he threw his nine-month-old daughter into a river, a court has heard.

A father heard voices telling him to kidnap a baby and drown it years before he killed his nine-month-old daughter by throwing her into a river, a court has heard.

The circumstances surrounding the death of the child, referred to as baby Q, are being examined in a five-day inquest at the NSW State Coroners Court.

The infant was thrown into the water at Jack Evans Boat Harbour in Tweed Heads, on the NSW and Queensland border on the evening of November 17, 2018.

Her lifeless body washed ashore two days later on the sand at Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast, more than 30 kilometres north.

The baby was thrown into the water at Tweed Heads before washing ashore in Surfers Paradise. Picture: Nine News

In the hours leading up to the death of the nine-month-old, her father tried twice to give her away to women in the park.

Before 7pm, the court heard he held the baby in his arms as he walked towards the foreshore and threw her into the Tweed River.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Donna Ward SC, said a main question for the inquiry into the child’s death will be whether she drowned or whether her father suffocated her before throwing her into the river.

While “much of the evidence” pointed towards the first conclusion, she said it “did not exclude the possibility” the baby’s father smothered her while carrying her to the water.

The inquest heard the baby’s father was an Indigenous man living with schizophrenia and alcohol-dependence disorder who had previously reported suffering auditory hallucinations.

Ms Ward said he had heard voices telling him to kidnap and drown a baby, hallucinations hailing as Jesus, and experienced a delusion involving Britney Spears.

“We do not submit that delusions from many years earlier predicted his actions,” she said.

The man was not taking his antipsychotic medication at the time of the nine-month-old baby’s death, the court heard.

The inquest will examine the movements of the family on the day the nine-month-old was killed, including what her father did to cause her death and where her mother was at the time.

The nine-month-old was thrown into Jack Evans Boat Harbour in Tweed Heads on November 17.

The court was told the child’s mother had also experienced past hallucinations “of a religious bent” and experienced mental illnesses characterised by mood disturbance, manic episodes and delusions.

At one point, she told caseworkers she had moved from Queensland to NSW in order to escape domestic violence. However, the young mother later denied it was an issue.

On the morning of the nine-month old baby’s death, police discovered she and her sibling wearing only nappies and sleeping in between their parents on the ground at a park at Broadbeach in Queensland.

Gold Coast Child Protection Unit officer Adrian Bisa said he was shocked at the age of the children.

“That’s the only time in my eight years in the child protection unit I’ve had to deal with a … homeless baby essentially,” he said.

“We didn’t have any options or anywhere to take them.”

Police drove the family across the border to a coastal town in NSW where they had previously resided, but Constable Bisa said he knew it “wasn’t a long term fix”.

The family, who experienced homelessness for at least a year, returned to Tweed Heads five hours later.

Constable Bisa’s report on the incident wasn’t received by Queensland Child Protective Services until after the baby’s death.

A tribute to the dead baby at Surfers Paradise beach. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Ms Ward said the nine-month-old and her sibling were “entirely dependent on the adults around them to take care of them”.

“They were not taken care of as they should have been,” she said.

“The safety net that should have caught (the baby) failed (her).”

A key focus of the coronial inquest will be to determine why the safety net of police, child safety agencies, and other government agencies failed in their duty to protect the child.

Ms Ward acknowledged all of those involved in the response to the family had “wanted to help these children”.

“None of them were malicious in the things they did or didn’t do,” she said.

Ms Ward said the family had a “constellation of risk factors” for which they were offered “bandaid solutions”, such as food or temporary accommodation.

She questioned whether the frequency of the incidents should have “raised alarm bells” for case workers in NSW and Queensland.

On Monday, a case worker from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice conceded “more should have been done” to track the family after the children were assessed to be at high risk of neglect.

The inquest heard the father was found not guilty of murdering his baby by reason of mental illness in 2020.

The child’s mother was charged with failing to provide for her child and causing a danger of death, but she was discharged under the mental health act.

The baby’s death sparked a lengthy investigation, the court heard. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Ms Ward said the inquest was an important step in honouring the “important”, “loved” and “valued” nine-month-old baby.

“It is so very easy to become angry when reading about (the baby) and her short life and her death,” Ms Ward said.

“Your honour’s inquiry is an attempt to understand what went wrong here and an attempt to understand what we can do better.”

If the baby had lived, she would have been five years old and finishing up her first year of school this year.

Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame acknowledged the tragedy of the circumstances on Monday morning.

“This is an absolutely heartbreaking death of an absolutely beautiful First Nations girl,” she said.

“We are conducting this inquest out of respect for that baby’s life.”

The inquest will continue before deputy state coroner Grahame on Tuesday.

Originally published as Father heard voices before killing nine-month-old baby at Tweed Heads