Traumatised Toowoomba woman gets 10 months jail for break and enters

A Toowoomba court was told a little girl was sold to men by her mother, who also injected the child with meth, when the now traumatised woman appeared in court for minor property crimes.

A Toowoomba woman has faced court for minor property offences. Picture: Peta McEachern

A woman who said she endured a horrific childhood at the hands of her mother fronted a Toowoomba court for minor property crimes.

In July, Toowoomba Magistrates Court was told the ongoing trauma the woman, who is now in her 30s, had endured had led to a life of addiction and crime.

The woman, who is on remand for another offence, appeared in the lower courts via videolink from jail and pleaded guilty to six offences, which she committed in March while on bail for an alleged robbery offence.

Police prosecutor Stephanie Thompson said the Darling Downs woman entered someone’s car in Harlaxton, stealing a charger and screwdriver.

She said the woman used the tool to remove her monitoring device from her ankle.

The following day, Ms Thomson said a Glenvale resident confronted the woman as she tried to walk through their backdoor.

Later that night, she climbed through the window of a Newtown home, and once inside, she stole a bag full of clothing, which she also put on.

Ms Thomson said a neighbour caught the woman as she tried to leave the home, and detained her until police arrived.

She has been remanded in custody since.

The woman was sentenced to a 10 month jail term in July 2025, after serving 142 days in custody.

Solicitor Kate McIntyre told the court the woman’s life was “riddled with abuse in many many forms”, which was not an excuse for her actions rather context into her long standing addiction issues and mental state.

She said the woman was first introduced to drugs at the age of seven, when her mother injected her with meth, and she began drinking every day from the age of 10 or 11.

Ms McIntyre said her client said her mother, “has done all that she can to put her daughter in harm’s way”.

“(My client has) been exploited, her images sold, and at one point when she was nine-years-old she was sold to three men for a period of time,” Ms McIntyre said.

Ms McIntyre said the trauma followed the woman into adulthood, with her experiencing serious domestic violence at the hands of multiple men.
She said the woman breached her bail by not reporting to police because she wasn’t allowed to leave her home, and when police did a curfew check she wasn’t home because she’d fled in fear of her safety.

Upon her release on bail and subsequent property offending, Ms McIntyre said the woman has significantly relapsed, to the point where she was found wandering the streets naked and was taken to hospital by a good Samaritan.

Magistrate Kay Philipson said the woman’s charges looked serious at first blush, however they were at the lower end of the criminality scale when it came to break and enter offences.

Ms Philipson said it was clear the woman’s extremely traumatic childhood continued to affect her, as with the domestic violence she endured, and it was likely to continue to do so.

She noted a concerning feature of her offending was that she was on parole at the time, and that she had tampered with an EMD device given she had been sentenced for a similar offence in the past.

The woman pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing during a break, entering a dwelling, attempted break enter of a home, wilful damage of her EMD device, and breaching her bail conditions.

She was sentenced to a 10-month jail term with the ability to apply for parole as the 142 days she had spent in custody were declared as time served.

Originally published as Traumatised Toowoomba woman gets 10 months jail for break and enters