Starving ballerina’s mum sobs telling neglect trial her own dad forced her and girl onto scales, mocking both

WARNING: CONFRONTING IMAGES. The mother of a Floreat teenager hospitalised for severe malnourishment has broken down in court, revealing she hadn’t weighed her daughter for “many years” because her own father had mocked them both while doing it. The girl was about to turn 17 and weighed just 28.1kg when she was admitted to Perth Children’s Hospital on April 7, 2021, then taken into the protection of the Department of Communities the next day. Her parents’ District Court of WA neglect trial was told last week that the last time the girl had been weighed was back in 2017, when she weighed 21kg. Tearfully taking the witness stand on Tuesday, the mother said their only child — a strict organic vegan since age 12 — had not been weighed all those years “because it was distressing for her”. “My dad used to force me to be weighed and made fun of it,” the woman said, sobbing. “And he did that to her too when she’d been younger.” The woman claimed she was completely unaware that the department, which opened an investigation into the avid dancer at the end of November 2020, had tried to contact her multiple times that year. She further claimed that she only became aware of its involvement days before a mandated appointment with GP Amy Murdoch on April 1, 2021. The doctor deemed the 16-year-old “very underweight”, thought she “wasn’t eating” and ordered blood tests, but this was not a concern, the mother said. “She’d always been skinny,” the woman said. And when hospital staff then told her the child was malnourished, she felt “disbelief”. “Right up until all of that, I thought she was perfect,” the woman said. “I never thought of anything like that.” At that meeting, she also learned that department staff had paid an unannounced visit to the family home weeks earlier, which the woman claimed her husband had not told her about. When asked how that made her feel, she cried, replying, “he’d lied to me again.” Testifying last week, the father admitted controlling their household, hiding concerns about the girl’s health from his wife, accessing his spouse’s phone without her permission and deleting messages without her knowledge. Under questioning by his wife’s lawyer, Michael Perrella, the man also confessed to being verbally abusive to her — particularly when she asked about his use of her phone — for many years. The woman also contradicted the evidence of two dance teachers who separately raised the alarm with State authorities, disputing that they had raised concerns about the girl’s weight. 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