Floreat’s starving teen ballerina, now aged 20, withdrawn from giving evidence at parents’ neglect trial

WARNING: CONFRONTING IMAGES. The ballerina whose parents are accused of starving her in their Floreat home has been withdrawn from testifying at their criminal neglect trial, in a dramatic last-minute twist. The now 20-year-old teacher was due to give evidence as a defence witness at the District Court of WA trial on Thursday. But after her name was called out before the jury, an agonising wait ensued. And following an adjournment, Michael Perrella, representing the mother, told the jury that it had been decided the girl would not be called. “There’s been a change of mind and you have decided not to call her?” Judge Linda Black said, and Mr Perrella confirmed. Judge Black told the jury there was “no point speculating” about the afternoon’s events, adding that all they needed to know was there was only one more witness to hear on Friday. The trial is running way overtime, flagged from the outset as lasting longer than its scheduled seven days and now in its fourth week. The girl’s parents have both given testimony, with the father depicted as the household’s controlling force, who tried to shield his wife from concerned enquiries about the girl from dance teachers and the Department of Communities. He admitted, under questioning by Mr Perrella, that he would access his wife’s phone without her permission - and delete messages without her knowledge. But that was described by prosecutor Jenha Winter as convenient. “You are now claiming it was all him ... coercive, controlling and abusive,” Ms Winter said. “No, but he is those things,” the woman replied. Ms Winter said the mum was “not blind” and intelligent, accusing her of “consciously disregarding” concerns being raised. “You could physically see it in front of you and you ignored it,” the prosecutor said. The mum denied that, crying as she said: “I thought she was beautiful how she was. I thought she was perfect how she was”. The girl was hospitalised in April 2021 when she was about to turn 17 - weighing the same as an average nine-year-old at just 28.1kg - and taken into State care the following day. Her growth had been stunted — giving her a “bone age” of 13 — and puberty had been delayed. A vegan since the age of 12, she was fed via nasogastric tube for almost a week and ended up staying for 50 days, gaining 7kg and growing 3.4cm in height. The mother tearfully raised her voice in anger when complaining that hospital medics insisted the girl have the tube, which the couple objected to. “They all just swarmed on us and just surrounded us,” she said. “This was like an ambush.” The mother defended the couple stopping a blood test mid-way, saying the nurse who performed it was “useless”, causing the girl’s veins to collapse. She also said a GP appointment mandated by the department that led to the hospitalisation “wasn’t even an independent assessment”. The woman also reiterated an allegation that social worker Denise McNab grabbed her and her daughter roughly while trying to enforce a time limit on visits. Ms Winter then pointed out that the woman had also complained about Tania Shillington, one of the dance teachers who independently raised the alarm with the department. “Has everyone conspired against you?” the prosecutor asked. The mother replied: “It seems that way”. The parents are also accused of infantilising the avid dancer, wanting to keep her their “little girl forever”, which they denied. The father pleaded guilty at the start of the trial to uttering a forged record, having doctored their only child’s birth certificate to say she was two years younger than she actually was. Closing submissions will be heard next week before the jury deliberates its verdict. If you need help or support for an eating disorder or body image issue, please call Butterfly’s National Helpline on 1800 334 673 or email support@butterfly.org.au Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800