The prosecutor responded that the foster parents’ home was “certainly not like every other household in Australia” because “[the child] was a child in care”.

Stratton said other items on the document included an observation by his client in May 2021 that the child only seemed to listen when she threatened to get violent, with the mother lamenting: “It shouldn’t have to get to the point where I threaten you, that’s a problem.”

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Other matters put forward by prosecutors to demonstrate the claimed violent tendency included an argument between the woman and the child about the child using a phone without permission, and the child calling her a “f---ing bitch”.

In another interaction, in September 2021, a “smack, smack, smack” sound was heard on the recording, the court was told. Stratton said it is “not clear what that noise is caused by, whether it’s someone striking a desk or the wall”.

The prosecutor conceded that the transcript “just describes the sounds” on the recording and does not suggest a person was hit.

Stratton said another matter put forward by prosecutors was his client telling the child that she would speak to someone about “in effect, ending the child’s custody with her”.

He said this occurred after the husband and wife took on another foster child, and a conflict arose because the child believed they were “no longer the centre of the attention, because the attention was going towards this other child”.

Stratton said a comment that the child could be removed from the family’s care, in the context of “household disharmony”, was not violence or a threat of violence. He said none of the matters put forward by the Crown should be permitted as tendency evidence in the case.

Magistrate Susan McIntyre noted the mother’s guilty pleas to common assault and said she would deal with them at a later time.

She also noted that, in a separate case, the foster parents had indicated guilty pleas to a regulatory offence, for asking a man to make fake bids at the auction of their $4.1 million home in 2020 in an attempt to increase the sale price.

McIntyre said it may be best to allocate that matter to a different magistrate for sentencing.

William, 3, vanished from his foster grandmother’s home in the NSW Mid North Coast town of Kendall on September 12, 2014.

Despite a lengthy investigation by Strike Force Rosann and an inquest that began in 2019, no trace of William has ever been found and no one has been charged over his disappearance.

In June, police recommended that prosecutors lay criminal charges against the foster mother, alleging she covered up William’s accidental death. However, the woman’s solicitor said her client maintains “she has nothing to do with William’s disappearance”.

The hearing continues.

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