Baby Ebony inquest: Four-month old suffered 'horrific' injuries while in care of teen parents.

BY Candice Marcus

A four-month-old baby girl suffered “horrific injuries” before her death while in the care of her teenage parents, a South Australian inquest has heard.

The inquest, which began today, will examine any failures of agencies involved with the young family in New South Wales and South Australia.

Baby Ebony was left dead in her cot for a week at her parents’ Brooklyn Park unit, in Adelaide’s west, in November 2011 before her parents alerted Families SA to her death.

Her parents cannot be identified because her mother was 17 years old at the time when she was charged.

The pair were originally charged with murder and failing to report a death but those charges were downgraded and both pleaded guilty to criminal neglect.

The baby’s mother was placed on a two-year bond and ordered to take part in counselling, while the father, who was 19 when the girl died, was jailed for nine years and will be eligible for parole in February 2019.

The baby died from blunt head trauma and also had multiple fractures all over her body including her fingers and toes.

Counsel assisting the coroner Naomi Kereru said the autopsy detailed the “horrific injuries” that Ebony suffered in the lead-up to her death.

“In addition to the injuries to the head, the autopsy also revealed in excess of 70 fresh and healing fractures to her body,” she said.

Father ‘dropped’ and ‘broke’ Ebony, social worker told.

The inquest’s first witness, a social worker with health service Streetlink, Julia Claire Wright, said Families SA contacted her in July 2011 asking her how she thought the young mother was coping.

Streetlink, run by Uniting Care, provides support to youths who are at risk of homelessness or abuse, but is not a statutory care agency.

Ms Wright said the teenage mother had been using the service, but became frightened of attending Streetlink because of the behaviour of some of the other clients.

She said she had very limited contact with the baby.

“I sighted the baby once and that was just after she had been born and that was at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital,” Ms Wright said.

When asked by counsel assisting the coroner, Ms Kereru, if she thought the contact from Families SA was odd, she said she did.

Q: “It didn’t strike you as odd that someone from Families SA would ring and inquire about such a thing?”
A: “A little bit.”
Q: “And why is that?”
A: “Usually they do their own investigations. I’m not a family care worker and I don’t have any practical skills in my job that would allow me to make that assessment.”

Ms Wright said the mother called her in August 2011 to tell her the baby had been taken to hospital.

“She informed me that Ebony was in hospital because [the father] had dropped her and broken her,” she said.

The court heard hospital staff had doubts about the parents’ story about how the injuries happened and an inquiry was initiated.

She said her last involvement with the young family was on October 13, 2011, when she sent a text message to the mother but did not receive a response.

When asked by the deputy state coroner Anthony Schapel why the file was closed, she said because of the lack of contact.

Social worker raised concerns with agencies.

Women’s and Children’s Hospital social worker Kelly Koufalas told the inquest she raised concerns about the couple’s ability to care for Ebony.

Ms Koufalas said Ebony’s mother had discussed having untreated mental health problems.

“The key issues were that she indicated she was removed from her mother’s care and that there were some issues around undiagnosed depression, as well as her wanting to engage with services at that time for ongoing support,” Ms Koufalas said.

“[She] was quite vague so she did acknowledge that she was removed from her mother’s care but she didn’t want to go into further detail about her child protection history.”

She said she felt the baby might be at risk and referred her concerns to both the Department of Community Services (DoCS) New South Wales and Families SA.

Ms Koufalas said that supervisor, Loretta Parenta, told her Families SA would follow up with the young family once the mother had been discharged from hospital.

“Loretta advised me that provided there was support after discharge … she felt comfortable for a follow–up from Families SA to occur after discharge in the community,” she said.

Ms Koufalas said she felt the need to keep a dialogue with the child protection agencies in NSW and SA for her own “peace of mind” so she knew they were aware of the issues.

She said she later became aware that the young couple had stopped engaging with authorities, so she phoned the father to try to convince him to maintain contact.

Mother was removed from family.

Earlier in the day, the court heard the teenage parents moved from NSW to SA in January 2011 when the mother was 13 weeks pregnant.

The court heard the mother was under the guardianship of the New South Wales Government after being removed from her family at the age of 10 due to physical and sexual abuse.

Ms Kereru said the NSW DoCS had not had contact with the mother since September 2010 and no interstate alert was put in place.

The court also heard the father had previously had a child with another woman in NSW and that child was removed from their care when he was four months old.

She said the inquest would examine “whether more could have been done with the information that existed to protect Ebony from harm”.

The court heard in July 2011 NSW DoCS made contact with Families SA to raise concerns about the mother’s parenting capacity.

But the court heard once Families SA had been informed about another baby being removed from the father in NSW, it did not seek any more information.

The inquest is scheduled to run until late August and will hear evidence from Families SA staff and NSW DoCS staff.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

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