A cruel couple has been jailed after subjecting their teenage daughter to years of neglect and starvation, leaving her weighing just four stone.
The girl, whose identity is protected, suffered abuse starting in her childhood, including being forced to adhere to a strict vegan diet. Her father was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, while her mother received a five-year sentence, both for neglect.
The abuse began when the girl was a child and continued into her teenage years, the Mirror reports. Now 20 years old, she was just 17 when her physical condition shocked authorities: she weighed only 4.4 stone, stood 4ft 8ins tall, and resembled a nine-year-old.
Her parents isolated her, with intense dance training being her only social interaction outside their home in Perth, Australia. Concerned parents and teachers at her dance school alerted Australia’s Department of Communities in 2020, worried about her deteriorating health.
Although authorities instructed her father to take her to a doctor, he instead sought a letter from a GP falsely stating she was healthy. On April 1, 2021, under mounting pressure, the parents finally took their daughter to a GP.
There it was revealed her father forged her birth certificate to claim she was 14, though the parents later dismissed this as a “mistake”. They told the doctor she ate organic pears, strawberries, minestrone soup, and ice cream, but the GP was alarmed by her condition and referred her for emergency treatment at Perth Children’s Hospital.
Doctors diagnosed her with grade 4 malnutrition. She was admitted to the hospital, where X-rays and a feeding tube were administered. Over five days, medical staff developed a meal plan while the parents tried to supervise her movements in the ward and even attempted to sleep near her bed.
After 50 days in the hospital, the girl gained 1.1 stone and grew 1.3 inches. Her parents’ neglect was starkly contrasted by their infantilising treatment of her: at age 17, she was still given Barbie dolls, watched Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine, and was treated as a young child. For her birthday, they even tried to arrange a visit from a Disney Princess. Despite this, the court heard she exhibited no cognitive impairments, excelling in piano and schoolwork.
Judge Linda Black condemned the parents, stating: “I cannot accept that you needed someone to point out that your daughter was starving, failing to grow, and failing to thrive. You engaged in wilful blindness of the most extreme kind.”
She added: “Neither of you were malnourished or starved. I can only conclude that you knew how to ensure you had enough food while failing to do the same for your daughter.”
The girl had written to the court last year, pleading for the case to be dropped, stating, “I will have nowhere to live and I will end up homeless.” Judge Black addressed this, saying: “You have created a child who was unable to function as an adult even at the age of more than 20 years.”
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