She killed her eight-week-old baby and critically injured the girl’s twin sister, leaving her unable to speak and in a wheelchair.
Now, the mother wants to be able to access her surviving daughter and the girl’s four-year-old brother — and according to a report in the Herald Sun, the Department of Human Services is backing her.
The woman, who cannot be identified, pleaded guilty to infanticide and recklessly causing serious injury following the 2012 death of her daughter — but she avoided a jail term, instead receiving a 12-month community corrections order.
Now, the girls’ paternal uncle has told the Herald Sun the DHS is asking for access to the children for the mother.
“Read the court reports and understand what the department is asking the court to do,” he said.
“It’s there in black and white. The department is asking for access to the children for the mother, the maternal grandmother and the maternal uncle.
The Herald Sun reports that while Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge has said she does not support access for the mother, DHS has issued the father with an ultimatum — saying if he does not agree to a plan that allows the mother contact, it will seek to extend its supervision order over the surviving daughter, now two-and-a-half.
“Their mandate is to do what is in the best interests of the children, but all they have been doing is trying to get (the mother) access,” the girls’ uncle told the Herald Sun.
“(The father) agreed to (access for) the grandmother and uncle but is objecting to the mother,” he said.
The Herald Sun reports DHS has already coordinated meetings between the mother and the girl’s medical specialists in preparation for them to be reintroduced, and also paid the psychologist who recommended the contact occur.
The children’s father will fight the move.
A court hearing beginning on November 5 will examine whether a current supervision order over the surviving girl should end.
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Top Comments
As an adult survivor of serious childhood abuse I wish they had kept my parents away, I remember clearly stating the abuse in detail to authorities but was returned to endure years more abuse. I am absolutely fed up with decisions based on birth parents rights. The clues are there people she did it once she will do it again.We take take pets away from abusive situations ( & rightly so) but return children time and time again to unsafe situations. I survived, many don't
We have family who have two children through long-term care. In 3 years, I have rarely seen a decision based in the best interests of the children. Decisions have almost always been birth-parent focused. It's a disgrace...especially knowing that these wonderful little beings have to have contact with a paedophile and better still, that FaCS allows him to tickle, bounce up and down on his knee, take the kids to the park where other children and families play. Not only that, the kids have been dropped off screaming their guts out every month, wet themselves afterwards, have trouble resettling in their now loving home. How about we begin to put the child at the centre - alien thought huh!