Father’s shock claim about malnourished ‘ballerina princess’

The teenager from Perth weighed just 27.3 kgs when she was hospitalised, with her father offering up a gobsmacking reason why.

When she was hospitalised, an almost 17-year-old girl from Perth weighed just 27.3 kilograms – the size of an average 9-year-old.

Her body mass index was 12.5 – well under the healthy range of 18 to 25. The girl’s hair was brittle and her skin was flaking, with doctors fearing she was at risk of cardiac arrest and death.

Bizarrely, she was treated as a toddler by her family who still wiped her bottom and blew her nose, according to witnesses.

She also donned princess dresses and watched children’s shows such as the Teletubbies.

Presents she received included Barbie dolls, while her parties were princess themed.

It’s like time was frozen.

The girl’s Floreat mother and father were jailed last month and the family cannot be named due to legal reasons, 7News reported.

Perth District Court Judge Linda Black said while the parents’ love for their child was obvious, they failed in their parental duties.

“This is not a case about a malnourished ballerina,” Judge Black said.

“You isolated your daughter, you prevented her from growing up, you prevented her from developing in the way she was entitled to. You did keep her as a little girl long beyond the age where she should have been.”

The judge also noted that the home lacked anything “even remotely age-appropriate”.

The 'ballerina princess'. Picture: 7News

Of the girl’s condition in the hospital, Judge Black wrote in her ruling: “She was wasted, according to the doctor, with limited body fat. She was pale. She was exhibiting no signs of puberty. Her hair was brittle and thin. Her skin was dry and flaking. Her heart rate was elevated. The doctor said they needed to do an ECG. And the two of you said no.”

The parents had not trusted the doctors.

Accused of failing to give their daughter enough food, or the chance to grow up, the parents allegedly tried to delay medical treatment. The girl was only taken to hospital after a threat from the Department of Communities and when they did not provide consent to lifesaving treatments, she was taken into the care of child protection.

The girl, now aged 20, was then able to gain weight.

The parents told the court they hadn’t realised their “beautiful ballerina” was malnourished.

While the father said she was a “fussy eater” who had become a vegetarian at age 8 and then turned vegan in her early teens. He said she ate three meals a day and had access to snacks.

“My client didn’t starve his kid … He never withheld food from her. He loved and spoiled his daughter. She was free to eat as much as she wanted. This case was about inadequate nutrition from a vegan diet,” Oliver Paxman, the father’s lawyer, told CNN.

“Every parent on this planet knows that if you don’t give a child enough food they will starve. But what if your kid chooses to be vegan?”

Despite her malnourishment, the girl’s father also praised her in photos uploaded to Facebook, commenting on one image: “What a beautiful photo of my ballerina princess!”

The girl was taken to hospital. Picture: 7News

The girl had been homeschooled by her mother who also took her to ballet lessons. It was here that concerns grew.

After advice from dance teachers to see a nutritionist was ignored, the teachers notified authorities of her child-like appearance.

The judge found the parents told “a cascading series of lies” from 2016 about their daughter’s age, in order to cover up their neglect. That included listing her age as younger than she was when applying for a dance class.

In an attempt to hide the girl’s malnourished state, the father forged her birth certificate to make her seem two years younger.

“You deliberately lied because you knew that your daughter did not look or behave like a child of her true age,” Judge Black said.

While the father admitted to falsifying the birth certificate, the parents denied all other charges. Instead, their lawyer said an anxiety disorder partly explained their actions.

The father was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail for the reckless care of a child that resulted in her suffering and forging his daughter’s birth certificate. He will need to serve four and a half years before he is eligible for parole.

The mother was sentenced to five years for the reckless care of her daughter that resulted in her suffering, and will need to serve three years before she is eligible for parole.