By Rebecca Peppiatt
Two Floreat parents will spend their first night behind bars after being found guilty of starving their teenage daughter, as well as social, emotional and functional neglect.
The parents, both 47, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have spent four weeks on trial where damning evidence was presented to the court about how the girl was allowed to become dangerously thin and developed grade 4 malnutrition that could have killed her.
The girl’s parents outside court last month.Credit: 9News Perth
A jury took just four hours on Wednesday to find both parents guilty of four counts of having care or control of a child engaged in conduct that was reckless and may have resulted in that child suffering.
The married couple have been on bail since their arrest in 2021, but despite impassioned pleas from both their lawyers, District Court Judge Linda Black remanded them both in custody to await sentencing, stating that it was not in their daughter’s best interest for them to return home.
Black told the couple there was a “potential risk of further harm” to the girl, who is now 20 and living with her parents full-time.
Black told the court after the guilty verdicts were received that the harm the parents caused to the girl was “significant” and would likely carry a lengthy term of imprisonment.
She also slammed the mother for allowing the girl to come to court during the trial to give evidence on her behalf, stating that she had been “a victim of significant trauma”.
The judged also criticised the woman’s lawyer for having the “audacity” to call for a re-trial when the girl had a panic attack and could not enter the witness box last week.
Black also praised the two ballet teachers who raised concerns about the girl to authorities.
“They could have taken their money and run,” she said.
“Then they had to come to court and be accused of lying and making things up.”
The evidence
The bizarre case has gripped the state for four weeks as witnesses gave evidence that the girl was taking dance classes in 2020 at 16 years old, but had the appearance of a nine-year-old.
Her father forged her birth certificate to make teachers believe she was 14 at the time, but even then she was significantly shorter and weighed less than other children in the class, who were two years younger than her actual age.
Those same dance teachers told the court they raised concerns with the parents in conversations, phone calls and emails, which they say were ignored.
The girl was 14 when this photo was taken.
After pressure escalated for the parents to get the girl assessed by a doctor, they moved her to a different dance school.
There, more teachers and parents raised concerns about the girl’s appearance.
But it wasn’t just her weight – witnesses told the court the girl was unusually immature for her age, despite also believing she was two years younger than her actual age.
She would hold her mother’s hand to and from the dance classes; dress like a young child with bows in her hair; had an interest in soft toys and preschool television shows; and would often sit on her mother’s lap.
Her parents would speak for her, they said, and she was rarely left alone. The parents insisted on sitting in on every dance class when other parents would drop their child and leave.
The court heard the girl was homeschooled and academically bright, showing a gift for piano, but seemed to have limited interactions with anyone outside of her parents and the dance school.
Both parents were university educated; the mother, a former journalist, gave up her career to be a stay-at-home mum, while the father worked in IT.
The father admitted to the jury he was controlling of his wife and was verbally abusive and coercive.
In 2020, when the walls were closing in and more people were raising concerns about the girl’s appearance, the dance school insisted the girl be brought food to eat between classes. While others had bowls of pasta, she would eat a few crackers with tomato, if anything.
But on the witness stand, both parents told the court they believed the girl’s appearance was hereditary; that they were both small and skinny as children and that she was just “following the same path”.
They tried to convince the jury the girl had chosen to become vegan when she was 12 years old and that she was the “healthiest child they knew”. They said food was always available in the home and that the girl could eat whatever she wanted.
They also claimed they did not take concerns about the girl’s weight seriously because they did not believe she was too thin.
When shocking photos of the girl’s emaciated appearance were shown to them on the witness stand, they brushed off concerns, claiming she was “a bit thin” but not medically so.
Eventually, the Department of Communities was contacted by one of the dance school owners and separately another dance instructor contacted the child protection department of Perth Children’s Hospital.
Calls were made to the parents where they were requested to get the girl medically evaluated to alleviate any concerns.
The matter could have ended there, but the court heard evidence that it took the parents five months to present the girl to a doctor.
In the meantime, the father saw his own GP without the girl present and discussed the issue, asking for a medical document stating she was healthy.
That GP declined, and instead the father avoided phone calls and emails from the department, changing his phone number multiple times and even hiding their communication from his wife.
He claimed he was shielding her from the concerns.
She claimed she had no idea the department was involved for so long.
Department caseworkers even made a home visit to the family’s home in the wealthy western suburb of Floreat, where they were spoken to by the father at the door.
He told them he wasn’t concerned about the girl’s appearance, stating that she was “small but eats a lot” but claimed she was busy with a piano lesson and could not come to the door to be seen.
He told the department he would take the girl to see a dietician, but five times made appointments that he later cancelled.
By April 2021, the parents relented and took the girl to see a GP who weighed her. She was just 27.3 kilograms.
The GP was so concerned she told the parents the girl needed a blood sample and then to be taken to the emergency department at Perth Children’s Hospital.
They took her a week later and she was admitted, despite her parents’ reluctance. She was placed on a nasogastric tube and spent 50 days in hospital where gained weight and grew in height.
Doctors could find no medical explanation for her malnutrition.
The parents argued with doctors saying they were “crazy” when it was told to them the child was at risk of death or a heart attack because of her condition and obstructed the care she desperately needed.
Shortly after, the Department of Communities took the girl out of their care so she could receive the medical attention she needed. She was later placed into a foster care arrangement with family members after she was discharged from hospital.
She returned home to live with them on her 18th birthday.
Both parents were charged with two counts of having care or control of a child engaged in conduct that was reckless and may have resulted in that child suffering in relation to the girl’s malnourishment, as well as emotional social and functional neglect.
Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The pair will be sentenced in January.
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