Hobart grandmother pleads guilty of ill-treatment of a child after keeping 13-year-old boy in nappies and deprived of sleep

An affluent Hobart grandmother has pleaded guilty to ill-treatment of a child after forcing her teenage grandson to wear nappies, depriving him of sleep and filming him naked.

Supreme Court of Tasmania, Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Jupe

An affluent Hobart grandmother who made her teenage grandson wear nappies, deprived him of sleep and filmed him naked and in painful positions for hours at a time has pleaded guilty to the ill-treatment of a child; but is disputing certain facts in the case.

The case is being heard in Tasmania’s Supreme Court. Due to the age of the child at the time, details and names that would identify the child are not being published.

The woman, now aged in her 70s, was caring for her four grandchildren after they were taken into the custody of an interstate child services agency following serious problems in their home life and frequent absences from school.

The accused, a former child care worker and nurse, described the children’s interstate home as “horrific”.

“It smelt of cat faeces, urine, human faeces, rotten food and disarray” she told the court on Monday.

The siblings were flown to Tasmania to live with their grandmother and grandfather in a six-bedroom mansion in a prestigious Hobart suburb. The children each had their own room and new beds were bought for them; Frozen-themed for the girls.

But the home was far from happy, with the grandmother using CCTV cameras to film her protracted punishments of her grandchild.

The Supreme Court of Tasmania has heard harrowing details. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Jupe

A 20-minute edited video tendered to the court showed consecutive days of abuse of the 13-year-old boy which lasted day and night.

The child is shown standing for lengthy periods of time either naked or in a nappy, with his hands locked behind his head in a slightly bowed position. He stares blankly at the camera, or cries. He is covered in bruises.

The camera was mounted in his bedroom with a bunk bed and study desk evident in the background. Another camera was mounted in the large kitchen of the home and in one clip the child is filmed bashing himself on the arm repeatedly, naked but for his nappy.

The boy told a pediatrician from Royal Hobart Hospital who examined him that his grandmother would deprive him of sleep night after night, and make him stand facing the wall with his hands behind his head for long periods of time. She also threw him against a wall, causing a severe head injury, and made him wear a nappy “all the time”, even to school.

The pediatrician told the court the boy arrived at the hospital in a soiled nappy and had “extensive nappy rash” on his genitalia and upper-thighs. His legs were red, swollen, itchy and “painful”; symptoms which usually occurred from standing for long periods of time.

The boy was also covered in dozens of bruises, including on his face, eye, head, chest, arms, legs, hands, ear, jaw and neck.

“The bruises are consistent with blunt force trauma to all of those areas,” the doctor said.

In one portion of the video the boy begins to tremble after standing so long, and falls to the floor. Once there he massages his arms, legs and feet before curling up in the foetal position on the carpet.

On some occasions the child tries to make a bed for himself after collapsing, and seeks warmth by pulling his arms and legs inside his school polo shirt and lying curled up.

There are no pillows or blankets in any of the videos on any of the days or nights, nor food or water.

On Monday witnesses, including two school psychologists, said the school’s concerns regarding the boy’s welfare escalated on the 24th February 2016, when he appeared at school with large bruises on his face and having defecated in his school uniform.

One senior school psychologist said the child had “a rather dull affect, somewhat flat” while a teacher described him as “emotionless, but crying”. The psychologist said he recalled the boy telling him he was filmed at home to ensure he kept doing “his punishments”.

Police and child safety officers were called to the school and the child was taken to a specialist pediatric clinic for children in state care at Royal Hobart Hospital.

HOBART, AUSTRALIA - NewsWire Photos APRIL 30 2021: Supreme Court of Tasmania, Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Jupe

A high-school teacher who had gained the trust of the boy over a period of time said that she had asked him to tell her about his home life, as she had grown increasingly concerned for his welfare and that of his siblings.

The boy had told the teacher that he was punched and hit, that he slept on the floor without pillows and a blanket, that there was faeces on the walls of his home and that he was forced to wear a nappy.

The teacher raised the alarm.

On Monday, the accused said her four grandchildren had arrived in Tasmania “traumatised” and with severe behavioural issues. She had been unable to secure help from Tasmanian child services so they could access specialist psychiatric help.

“I thought we were just getting ordinary children,” the accused said, before listing behavioural problems that included bed-wetting, sibling fighting and “volatility”.

After living with the grandchildren for a number of days, the accused typed up lists of rules around the house, including “House Rules”, “Bathroom Rules” and “School Rules” for the children to follow.

Originally published as Hobart grandmother pleads guilty of ill-treatment of a child after keeping 13-year-old boy in nappies and deprived of sleep