Mother facing jail for deadly neglect ‘atrocity’
Abe Maddison |
A severely malnourished six-year-old girl suffered an “atrocity” of neglect before her lifeless, lice-ridden body, weighing just 18kg, was rushed to hospital, a court tasked with sentencing her mother has heard.
Crystal Leanne Hanley, 49, faced the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to criminal neglect causing death over the death of her six-year-old daughter, Charlie Nowland, in July 2022.
The mother-of-five also pleaded guilty to separate counts of criminal neglect relating to two other children.
Hanley, of Munno Para in Adelaide’s north, rocked and sobbed silently in the dock as victim impact statements from two of her children and two first responders were read to the court.
Charlie, who had never been taken to a doctor in her life and had never attended school or child care, was taken to the Lyell McEwin Hospital on July 15, 2022 after she stopped breathing.
Prosecutor Kos Lesses said Charlie died from cardiac failure associated with anaemia and severe iron deficiency.
“In simple terms, she was so severely malnourished to the point where her body essentially collapsed and her heart gave way,” he told Justice Sandi McDonald.
Hanley’s home was in a deplorable and disgusting state, he said.
“To merely state that it was in a state of squalor is to understate how bad it was,” he said.
Hanley had repeatedly lied and obfuscated to people about getting medical attention for Charlie and told her former partner in a call: “I’m going to jail, I failed her, I failed everybody”.
Chris Kummerow, for Hanley, said she had become a heavy methamphetamine user and suffered untreated PTSD after she was assaulted and repeatedly stabbed by her former partner, John Nowland, in January 2021.
“Everyone in this courtroom is asking how a mother could treat her child like this,” he said.
“Ms Hanley does love and always did love her children, she was simply emotionally, mentally and cognitively incapable of providing them with the care that they needed.”
He rejected the prosecution’s assertion that Hanley had shown “callous disregard” for her daughter.
This prompted Justice McDonald to note witnesses had said Charlie could not walk, and had swollen legs “and your client’s joking that ‘she’s got cankles … she’s a dickhead and she won’t walk’.”
Sergeant Haydn Evans said he could still vividly see Charlie’s lifeless body on the hospital bed.
“What happened to Charlie was an atrocity, one that should never have been allowed to occur,” he said.
“As a society, we must do more to ensure that horrors like this never happen again – no child should ever endure the suffering that was inflicted on Charlie or on her surviving siblings.”
Her death had “profoundly affected every part of my life”, said the officer who suffered PTSD, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares and hyper vigilance.
Former nurse Angela Dente, who left the profession as a direct result of what she saw that night, said she was involved in attempting CPR.
“I kept looking at her little sweet face. Her eyes were open but vacant,” she said.
Charlie had “a head full of lice eggs”.
“Looking closer, I could see significantly large ones pilfering through her scabby bald patches, still looking for a feed,” Ms Dente said.
“The hardest part was putting her little body in the plastic bag for the morgue, gently picking her up, making sure that we wouldn’t hurt her head … we felt the need to protect her.”
Justice McDonald is yet to decide if further submissions are required before she imposes a sentence.
Lifeline 13 11 14
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
AAP
