A Floreat couple jailed last month for starving their teenage daughter and treating her like a little child are appealing their sentences.
The man and woman, both aged 48, were found guilty by a jury late last year after a litany of evidence was brought forward about how their daughter, an aspiring dancer and musician, was suffering from grade four malnutrition before the Department of Communities removed her from their care.
A dance school teacher told Perth District Court the girl was small, even by the standard of other students.
The wealthy couple who homeschooled the now 20-year-old woman have filed appeal documents this week with the Supreme Court of WA.
The mother, who was sentenced to five years in prison, has filed an appeal claim stating that “the convictions were unsupported by the evidence and occasioned a miscarriage of justice”. She also claimed that the sentences imposed were “manifestly excessive”.
The father’s grounds for appeal include that the jury’s verdict was unreasonable and not supported by the evidence. Documents seen by this masthead and filed on his behalf also state that the minimum non-parole period he received was manifestly excessive.
He was sentenced to 6½ years behind bars.
The girl was 14 when this photo was taken.
The woman’s document states she will be self-representing throughout the appeal process.
The couple, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, were slammed by District Court judge Linda Black at sentencing in January over gross negligence she said constituted “wilful blindness of the most extreme kind”.
“A parent that was not neglectful would have taken their daughter to see a medical professional long before you did —it was apparent to everyone around her except the people who professed to love her, and I simply cannot accept you didn’t see it,” Black said.
The court was told the girl — who had limited social interactions beyond dance classes — was admitted to hospital for almost two months at the age of 16, weighing in at just shy of 28 kilograms.
Doctors raised concerns about her elevated heart rate, flaking skin, and delays in her bone age and puberty caused by prolonged malnutrition, ruling she was at risk of cardiac arrest and placing her on a nasogastric tube.
But despite the mounting evidence about the risk to their daughter’s health, Black said the pair adopted the belief that the dance instructors, medical staff and the authorities were conspiring against them.
“That is the child you created. The fact your daughter felt she could not survive without you is your fault,” she said.
“You have created a child unable to function as an independent adult at more than 20 years of age.
“The dependence you have created, and the interwoven relationship, means she cannot psychologically grasp the concept that the two people who loved her most were the same two people who neglected her.”
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