A man accused of starving his emaciated daughter told worried hospital staff body mass index “was for fat people”, and there was “nothing f***ing wrong with my kid”, a Perth court has heard.
The father and the girl’s mother are on trial in the Perth District Court accused of causing their child to suffer, after the teen’s alarmed ballet teachers alerted authorities to her plight.
On Monday the court was told the father was urged by doctors at Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH) to allow his dangerously underweight daughter to have a feeding tube.
PCH child protection unit head Alice Johnson said the girl, who was nearly 17 when she was admitted to hospital, was suffering from malnutrition considered to be in the “worst” category.
She told the court the teen had a BMI of 13.1, yet the parents claimed their daughter was “safe and happy”.
The father told staff “body mass index is for fat people” and not applicable to his child, Dr Johnson said.
Girl’s weight that of a nine-year-old
The girl was taken to hospital by her reluctant parents in April 2021 after a GP had found she weighed only 27 kilograms.
Dr Johnson said the parents had “pleaded” with the GP to give them the weekend “to feed the girl up” but eventually took her to hospital days later, where the urgency of the situation was explained to them.
The girls’ parents are both on trial accused of starving her. (ABC News: David Weber)
By that time she had put on a small amount of weight and was recorded as being slightly more than 28 kilograms by the hospital.
Dr Johnson said this was the average weight of a nine-year-old, and the parents were urged to allow a feeding tube to be inserted, but the father was resistant.
“He did not believe she was at risk of cardiac complications,” she told the court, despite doctors explaining this was a grave risk if they did not allow it.
At this point the teenager was removed from her parents’ care, and decisions about her treatment were made by the Department for Communities.
However, her parents continued to bring her food from home, against the wishes of the hospital, Dr Johnson testified.
Teen ‘immature for age’
The girl “seemed extremely immature” for her age, Dr Johnson said, and was dependent on her parents.
At one point, the father claimed the hospital was “killing kids”, telling staff “there is nothing f***ing wrong with my kid.”
The girl’s dance instructors were worried about her weight. (Supplied: District Court of Western Australia)
The court was also shown documentation the father provided to the department in late 2020, purporting to be from GP Craig Berg, which stated the girl weighed 42 kilograms.
But when Dr Johnson called Dr Berg, he said he’d never seen the girl and had refused to provide any documents to the father, whom he described as “very odd”.
She said it “did not seem plausible” that the girl’s weight would have plummeted from 42kg to 28kg in just a few months, which “made us more concerned”.
The teenager was finally admitted to hospital in 2021 where it was determined she was dangerously underweight. (Supplied: District Court)
Last week the court heard the parents had told the girl’s ballet teachers her small stature could be explained by her premature birth, but Dr Johnson said medical records had shown this wasn’t true, and she had been born full term.
The records had shown that up until the age of five, the child was below the average weight and height for girls her age, but Dr Johnson said she was nonetheless “growing as a small child would” at that stage.
The trial continues.
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