‘Distressing’: Parents to attend inquest of dead 21-week-old baby

The parents of a baby girl found dead beneath a blanket were placed under covert audio surveillance by police, a coroner has heard.

Injuries found during the infant’s autopsy also prompted police to search the mother’s recent internet search history, a pre-inquest conference was told.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found unresponsive by her father at their Brisbane home with a blanket covering her whole body in 2020.

Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard was told on Wednesday in Brisbane that an autopsy did not identify a cause of death.

“She was found by her father when he awoke in the morning ... lying with a blanket over her head,” counsel assisting Laura Reece said.

“She was unresponsive and unable to be revived by paramedics who attended a short time later.

“There is evidence there was red substance on [the girl’s] clothing, and during resuscitation attempts, a small amount of blood came from her mouth.”

A preliminary autopsy identified two areas of subdural haemorrhage in regions of her brain but a neuropathologist and paediatrician later found they were unrelated to the girl’s death.

Police identified three possible scenarios leading up to her death, Kirkegaard heard.

“The first being her mother deliberately caused her death by suffocation; the second being she might have died by accidental overlay from her mother falling asleep while breastfeeding; or from sudden infant death syndrome,” Reece said.

“Police conducted searches of the mother’s recent internet search history and undertook covert surveillance of the parents in their home with a listening device.”

The parents have not made any admissions to police and have not been charged.

The girl was unlikely to have had the motor skills to cover herself completely and neatly with a blanket, paediatric specialist and child protection adviser Otilie Tork found.

Tork also found her haemorrhages were most likely inflicted by another person via substantial acceleration or deceleration of her head.

The inquest into the circumstances leading up to the girl’s death, her prior injuries, and the subsequent police investigation is scheduled to take place over three days from April 28.

The parents will be called up as witnesses.

The father told Kirkegaard he wanted to represent himself at the inquest because hiring a lawyer was too expensive.

“The process is distressing to us. We’re trying to lead our lives normally. I can’t explain how painful it is,” the father said of the inquest.

“It’s distressing, but it’s OK if it can identify how other families cannot go through this.”

The girl’s mother, who also cannot be named, attended the pre-inquest conference and was represented by barrister Kim Bryson.

Kirkegaard told the parents they could provide a family statement about what their daughter’s life meant to them.

“She was so much more to you and her community than the circumstances in which she died,” she said.

AAP

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