The jury tasked with determining if a Perth couple starved their child has just retired to reach their verdict after hearing four weeks of evidence.
Initially due to run for only seven days, the complex case of two Floreat parents and the allegations they neglected their teenage daughter by allowing her to become dangerously underweight and treated her like a small child, has run well over time.
A dance school teacher told Perth District Court the girl was small, even by the standard of other students.
The trial has heard evidence from dance school teachers, doctors, social workers and Department of Communities staff who all testified that they implored the parents, both aged 47, to get their daughter medically checked out after observing her to be emaciated with yellow skin, thinning hair and lanugo - fur-like hairs on her body common in people with malnutrition.
In April 2021, she weighed just 28 kilograms and was a similar size to a nine-year-old, despite being almost 17 years old.
She was hospitalised for 50 days and placed on a naso-gastric tube.
Hospital staff then noted alleged odd behaviours between the parents and the girl, where they would allegedly speak for her, hold her hand, encourage her to watch pre-school age television shows and even wipe her genitals after going to the bathroom.
The girl was placed into the care of the Department of Communities and then a foster care arrangement with family members where she remained until her 18th birthday when she returned voluntarily to her parents’ home.
Both parents testified that they were loving and devoted to their only child and that the girl ate a healthy vegan diet that was supplemented with vitamins.
They denied she was treated like a little girl and said her small, skinny frame was hereditary.
The parents have each been charged with two counts of having care or control of a child engaged in conduct that was reckless and may have resulted in that child suffering in relation to the girl’s malnourishment, as well as emotional and behavioural neglect.
Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The father was also charged with uttering a forged record after he altered the girl’s birth certificate to make her appear two years younger than she was. He pleaded guilty to that charge before the trial began.