Body worn SA Police footage of mother Jenni Wilmott’s arrest and police interview released after daughter Jasmine died by suicide
Dramatic arrest footage shows a mother accused of driving her teenage daughter to suicide telling police “I'm not guilty of anything, I loved that little girl”. Watch it here.
The moment a mother who allegedly drove her daughter to suicide is arrested has been revealed, with her telling officers it feels like a “big nightmare”.
Jenni Wilmott, 56, is standing trial in the Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to multiple charges, including manslaughter, criminal neglect and assault.
The charges arise from the 2018 death of Ms Wilmott’s daughter, Jasmine, who took her own life.
The body worn footage from the day of Ms Wilmott’s arrest on October 29, 2020 and played to the court was released to The Advertiser by the presiding judge.
The video shows an apparently shocked and emotional Ms Wilmott being told by officers that she is being placed under arrest on suspicion about how Jasmine was treated.
“I’m not guilty of anything, I loved that little girl,” Ms Wilmott tells them.
“Do you know how much of a loss it is to have your child … to be accused of anything to do with that. I can’t even process this.”
Ms Wilmott then asks officers if they’re going to put her in jail, before breaking down, saying: “That child meant the absolute … you have no idea”.
“This feels like a big nightmare to be honest,” she says.
The video then shows Ms Wilmott being taken to the Christies Beach police station for a formal interview, where she discusses locking Jasmine’s bedroom window to “protect her”.
“I just wanted to know that she was inside and safe,” she said.
Ms Wilmott then told officers that she converted the laundry to Jasmine’s bedroom at one of their properties in 2013 but it was because Jasmine asked for it.
“She loved it down there,” she said.
“She’s tiny … but she’s never complained about feeling the cold.”
Later on in the interview, Ms Wilmott vehemently denied assaulting Jasmine, saying it’s “absolutely not true”.
“I would never hurt her … she’s my daughter,” she said.
“There is no words to describe my relationship with her, I absolutely adore her.”
When Ms Wilmott was told that bruises on Jasmine were photographed and shown to a schoolteacher she replied “I would never, ever, ever hit Jasmine”.
Ms Wilmott told officers Jasmine would occasionally get bruises because she was a “bit clumsy” and had spatial awareness issues.
“She did injure herself a bit but in terms of walking into walls and stuff,” she said.
“She’d fall, she’d walk into stuff.
“I saw her bashing her arm out of frustration … and she ended up with bruises all along her arm.”
Giving evidence last week, a former classmate of Jasmine’s at St Dominics’ Priory College said she noticed Jasmine with bruises “almost every day”.
“I saw her in Year 5 come to school with a cut lip and a black eye,” she said.
Jasmine’s police interview was released to The Advertiser by the court after St Dominic’s Priory College, where she was attending at the time, reported concerns about her having bruises on her body.
In the interview from 2014, when Jasmine was aged 11, she told an officer that she was “extremely safe and happy” at home.
“I’m extremely clumsy as well, I bump myself absolutely every day,” she says.
“My mum has never, ever, ever done anything wrong with me.”
In her opening, prosecutor Jemma Litster told the court Ms Wilmott showed an “overarching resentment” towards Jasmine throughout her life that resulted in her failing to provide her with adequate food, clothing and shelter.
The court heard Jasmine was underfed in Ms Wilmott’s care, weighing only 32kg at the age of 15.
“Further Jenni Wilmott failed to provide adequate conditions of personal safety, by assaulting her physically and verbally, causing others to hit her,” Ms Litster said.
Ms Litster told the court Ms Wilmott also subjected Jasmine to cruel punishments, such as cutting her hair short, making her do excessive chores in her underwear and “treating her like a burden”.
“Ms Wilmott described her as having a number of conditions, which she did not, starting with reactive attachment disorder and also later autism spectrum disorder,” she said.
Ms Litster said Jasmine was made to stay in a “freezing cold” laundry and a tent at other properties, and the door was alarmed and the windows locked in her last bedroom.
In a child’s police interview from 2022, which was recently played to the court, they told police that the treatment of Jasmine “wasn’t that good” and that Ms Wilmott used to “hit her a lot”.
“And she, like, wouldn’t be allowed to eat food sometimes,” the child said.
The child told police Jasmine was usually hit on the back, the back of the legs, or places where people wouldn’t notice it.
“She (Ms Wilmott) mostly used an open hand and she’d sometimes use, like, a wooden spoon … then she’s used a rolling pin before as well,” the child said.
The trial, before Justice Sandi McDonald and in the absence of a jury, continues.
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Originally published as Body worn SA Police footage of mother Jenni Wilmott’s arrest and police interview released after daughter Jasmine died by suicide
