Hobart grandmother sometimes ‘completely lost control’ when grandchildren threatened her authority, court hears

A Hobart grandmother has disputed facts in a case alleging mistreatment of her grandson, including allegations she had a power obsession.

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An obsession with enforcing “power and control” in a prestigious Hobart home led to a grandmother spiralling in the maltreatment of her four vulnerable grandchildren, a Hobart court has heard.

Closing submissions were tendered to the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Monday in the Disputed Facts hearing of a Hobart grandmother who has pleaded guilty to the ill-treatment of her grandson, then aged 13.

As Crown Prosecutor Linda Mason tendered her submissions to Judge Robert Pearce the accused repeatedly rolled her eyes and shook her head in the dock.

Justice Robert Pearce.

For the first time her husband joined her from the back of the courtroom. The man has stood by his wife throughout the hearing, and gave evidence that she had done nothing wrong while the children were in their care for an eight-month period from 2015.

Ms Mason said the accused had painted a portrait of the complainant, then aged 13, as “a very difficult child” whose “disgusting” behaviour led to an increasing spectre of punishments meted out against him.

The accused had an obsession with power and control, the court heard, and enforced her authority in a variety of ways, including controlling food, access to the toilet, who a child could speak to outside the home, when they could leave their room and even if they could sit or stand.

“The exercise of control became more pronounced, more coercive, as time progressed,” Ms Mason told the court, adding that the accused would at times “completely lose control” herself when her authority was threatened by the children’s behaviour, much of which was influenced by their trauma background.

“She deliberately instilled fear into the children as part of her regime of enforcing her control.”

Supreme Court of Tasmania. Picture: Richard Jupe

The prosecution argued that the punishments aim was to “degrade and humiliate” the complainant, and that the acts of ill-treatment; including making him wear nappies and forcing him to eat his own vomit – were “deliberate” and “extreme” in their nature with a view “to break him”.

“You had disdain and loathing for the complainant,” Ms Mason said. “Your aim was to strip him bare of any sense of self and self-worth”.

Craig Rainbird, the accused’s defence lawyer, rejected this interpretation of events, and said instead that “false memories” had been deployed by the complainant in his evidence against his grandmother and the elderly couple had done their best for their grandchildren with a minimum of support from child protection agencies.

“Their home was the polar opposite of a regime of fear,” Mr Rainbird said.

Combing through the original police interviews with the grandchildren in 2016, Mr Rainbird called the Judge’s attention to a description by one child that Nanny was “kind”, and by another that “I love Nanny and Pop” and by another in her diary that “Today has been good. I can’t wait to see Nanny and Poppy.”

Mr Rainbird also asserted that the extensive bruising on the complainant was solely down to “self-harm”, and the self-harm was motivated by the child’s ongoing “defiance” and wish to return interstate to live with other relatives.

“The complainant’s memory is distorted and unreliable … it has decayed over time,” Mr Rainbird told the Judge.

The matter is adjourned until October 29.

Originally published as Hobart grandmother sometimes ‘completely lost control’ when grandchildren threatened her authority, court hears