In a dramatic late development that has upended a high-profile child mistreatment case in Western Australia, the convictions of two Perth parents found guilty of starving their 16-year-old aspiring ballerina daughter have been overturned on appeal, and the couple has been released on bail ahead of a planned retrial.
The pair, who cannot be identified publicly due to ongoing legal restrictions, were found guilty by a jury in November 2024 following a two-year investigation that traced back to an alarming hospital admission in early 2021. The case first came to authorities’ attention on April 7, 2021, when the teenager was brought to Perth Children’s Hospital in a state of extreme severe malnourishment. At 16 years old, she weighed just 28 kilograms — a body mass roughly matching the average weight of an 8-year-old child, half her chronological age.
During the original trial, the mother was convicted on charges that she failed to protect her daughter from harm between 2019 and 2021, and willfully deprived the teen of adequate support for her emotional, social and physical development. The father faced separate conviction for two offences: reckless child care that led to the teen’s suffering, and forging his daughter’s birth certificate to falsely record her as younger than her actual age. Throughout the entire legal process, both parents have maintained their innocence, claiming there was nothing abnormal about their daughter’s health or physical appearance.
The appeal ruling, handed down Tuesday by the Western Australian Court of Appeal, reversed the guilty verdict and ordered the couple’s release on bail, with a fresh retrial scheduled to begin later this month. The parents appeared for the appeal hearing via video link; reporters in court noted that the mother broke down in tears when the quashing of her conviction was read aloud.
“The two accused have been released on bail, and there will be a retrial,” the couple’s defence lawyer Tom Percy told 9News following the ruling.
While the mother had previously argued in her bail application that she was denied a fair trial because she suffered illness that left her unwell for multiple days during the original proceeding, that initial appeal for bail was rejected by the court before this week’s full overturning of convictions. As of Wednesday, full written reasons for the appeal court’s decision to quash the convictions have not yet been published by the judiciary.