‘The last thing you expect’: Father of allegedly drugged baby speaks out

1 month ago 15

The father of a baby girl allegedly poisoned by her influencer mother for fame and financial gain has broken his silence.

Media outlets cannot reveal the identity of this Queensland family, but they were once well-known faces on Tiktok, with sympathetic followers who desperately wanted their daughter to get better.

In one video posted before she was arrested and charged with torture, the mother wept, telling her online audience that knowing about her baby’s sickness was “the worst thing for a parent to know”.

The medical dramas of the daughter of a Queensland influencer elicited sympathy from followers online.

But police claimed it was a performance, and accused her of deliberately poisoning the one-year-old – alleging she hid the girl under a blanket and administered an unprescribed drug through a nasal tube to render her unconscious.

The baby’s father – the woman’s then-fiance – said he had not known about the alleged behaviour at the time and wished he had.

Police arrived at their home to arrest her in January, with allegations dating from August to October 2024.

The mother during her arrest earlier this year.

“It’s hard because everybody keeps saying I should’ve recognised the signs that … some sort of foul play was going on,” he told Nine’s A Current Affair.

“The last thing you’re ever going to expect is the person that you’re head over heels for, [who] you’re going to marry, have children with, building a future with – that’s not the person you point fingers at.

“My relationship with the mum truly was amazing … she was the best mum in the world. Everything was wonderful and she was wonderful, until she wasn’t.”

The baby had been in and out of hospital with complex medical conditions, and had been prescribed carbamazepine, also known as Tegretol, to manage her seizures.

The Queensland mother and influencer has been accused of torturing her baby daughter.

Doctors stopped the prescription when her seizures got worse, but police said 18mg of the drug was found in her system – close to a lethal dosage of 25mg.

While the infant was in hospital, two high-risk brain surgeries were performed that police alleged had not been necessary at the time.

In a video the man shared with A Current Affair, he confronts his partner outside their home before her arrest, demanding to know why Tegretol was in the baby’s system.

The mother answers that she does not know.

The man shared footage of the moment he confronted his partner about the drug found in his daughter’s system.

While the child’s health deteriorated, the mother’s social media page was swamped with support, with at least $60,000 donated to the family.

The father said he could not say where the money went.

“A lot of it did go towards what we said it was going towards.”

He insisted he had never harmed his daughter.

The man said he had been questioned by police and told he would not face charges, “because I didn’t do anything”.

But he was ordered to have visits with his children only under supervision, including the daughter at the centre of the case.

“I’m still here a year on without being able to put my children to bed ... I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost family members, I’ve lost multiple jobs because I’m being accused of something that I didn’t do,” he said.

“I’ve lost my self-worth, most likely going to lose my car, definitely at some point going to lose my house.”

The mother was on bail at present, allowing her to have video calls with their baby and physical visitation with her other children – something the father said was not reasonable.

But he said his daughter was being looked after by good people, and had come a long way since the alleged poisoning.

“She still knows who daddy is, she gets that big, goofy smile when she sees me,” he said.

“It might not feel like it now because I don’t get to see them very often, but I do love them and I do miss them, and I’m doing everything I can to get them to come home.”

Video has emerged of his former partner speaking at a church before they met, in which she claimed to have been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and in need of lifelong dialysis. She said the healing power of God would cure her.

“She stood in front of all those people, told them of this condition that she had supposedly had that she certainly did not have,” the father said.

“Now all of this has come out, I think all of these people are still of the mentality that I had some sort of role to play in it. But I assure them, I didn’t.”

He was unfazed by the thought of his ex-partner being convicted and facing jail. “Hope so,” he said.

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