Neighbours tell of desperate fight to save ‘the most beautiful girl’

Neighbours close to Charlie have told of their fight to save the “the most beautiful girl” — both on the night she died and when authorities were called in the past.

About 1am on Friday, while most Adelaide children slept, six-year-old Charlie was fighting for her life.

Shortly afterwards that fight was lost.

Neighbours close to Charlie’s family, who asked to remain anonymous, have told The Advertiser of the heart-wrenching ordeal they experienced trying to help save “the most beautiful girl”.

While they prepared for bed early on Friday morning in the quiet Munno Para street of housing trust homes, they heard erratic screams of “Charlie’s not breathing”.

Security camera footage, viewed by The Advertiser, shows a desperate neighbour sprint to their door in a plea for help.

Seconds later the pair can be seen running towards Charlie’s home where they were met with every parents’ worst nightmare.

Inside the home, Charlie’s mother, who has not spoken to the media, was desperately performing CPR on her child.

Charlie from Munno Para.

The neighbours rushed to her side to help the girl, who they believed had something lodged in her throat.

One after the other they performed CPR on Charlie in the minutes before paramedics arrived.

So desperate to save the girl’s life, one of the neighbours stuck her fingers down Charlie’s throat while the other phoned for an ambulance, which would arrive within minutes.

Along with Charlie’s mother, she scraped vomit from the girl’s mouth to try to clear her airways.

Speaking from her lounge room on Monday afternoon, just metres from where Charlie was taken away by paramedics, one of the neighbours said she knew it was too late.

By the time she had arrived, Charlie was “cold to the touch”.

She said paramedics attempted to revive Charlie using a defibrillator while other children were taken out of the room and scattered among neighbours’ houses.

But Charlie could not be saved and died in the early hours of Friday morning at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

The neighbours told The Advertiser the four-bedroom house Charlie was living in was so cluttered that paramedics were “chucking” furniture outside, where it remains by the front door.

They said the floor was covered with cat faeces and smelled strongly of cat urine.

“They had no storage, they had nowhere to store anything of their own, the bathroom was disgusting to say the least, same with the laundry,” one of the neighbours said.

“The first thing you smelled when you went into that house was cat pee … you couldn’t even stand in there for five minutes before you had to get out and get some fresh air.”

She believed Charlie did not leave the house for about a month before her death and was “thin for her age”.

“Over a period of time we saw them less and less,” she said.

Both neighbours said they believe the system is to blame. They allege that they made eight reports to the Child Protection Department over a three-week period but no department employee ever entered the house Charlie lived in to check on her condition.

“They never went inside that house,” one neighbour said. “They would stand outside for half an hour to an hour and leave.

“Someone should have stepped in They could have done something about it.”

Without apportioning blame as to the immediate cause of death, both neighbours said they believe Charlie’s death could have been avoided if the system had identified her mother as needing support.

“In my first experience of being in that house I already knew that she wasn’t doing all right,” one said.

“She herself got neglected too. “DCP just allowed them to slip through the cracks. Enough is enough.”

The neighbours told The Advertiser Charlie’s mother had told them she “wished people would have helped me a long time ago”.

They now want Charlie to be remembered as a “survivor” and a “warrior” whose death could lead to other children’s lives being saved.

“Charlie is a hero,” one said.

“Having her no longer her is so much more hard than anyone could have anticipated.”

Neighbour Mark walks his dog Tara along the street where alleged child neglect occurred. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Mark, who has lived nearby for 13 years said he had seen children who appeared happy, well-dressed, laughing and playing in the street “all the time”.

“It’s a tragic set of circumstances,” Mark said.

“You don’t expect things like that to happen in your neighbourhood … any death of a child is tragic.

“Kids are vulnerable and they’re our future.”

Mark said the “close knit” neighbourhood would be “wanting to see what the outcome is”.

“The community will know about it, feel it, especially this street,” he said.

“Let’s hope it was just a tragedy and not neglect.”

Mark said he heard the ambulance arrive on Friday but there were often incidents in the area.

The Child Protection Department was contacted for comment in response to the neighbours’ allegations.

In a statement, a spokeswoman said: “As reported at this morning’s press conference, SA Police has established a task force to investigate this tragic event. All government agencies, including DCP, will be co-operating fully with the investigation and the DPC review.”