Australia, August 28: They are guilty of one of the worst cases of child neglect police have ever seen but yesterday walked free from court with barely a slap on the wrist.
The parents of six children who were forced to fend for themselves in squalor for three days were yesterday fined just $50 each per child.
The children – aged between eight weeks and six years – were rescued from their pitiful existences after neighbours were alerted by their distressed cries and contacted police, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Officers had to use sledgehammers to access the couple’s Bidwill home where they found the house a complete mess, with uncooked noodles in the bathroom sink, in August last year.
Four of the six children were locked out on the balcony while an eight-week-old baby and 18-month-toddler were found on a bed in a “smoko room” next to their drug-induced sleeping parents.
Lets hope the children come out of this situation unscathed. Unfortunately due to our fantastic system they’ll end up back with their parents & probably into exactly the sa…
The two-month-old baby girl was found with white “gunk” between the folds of her neck, dirt under her fingernails and a flaking scalp.
Her smell was so “terrible” that a police officer was forced to hand her over to a colleague while he went outside for fresh air.
The child’s mother, 24, told police she had not bathed the baby in a week – preferring instead to “sponge” her child.
The mother and the children’s father, 30, faced the Downing Centre Local Court yesterday after each was convicted of six counts of child neglect.
The children – three of whom did not have their births recorded with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages – are in the care of an aunt.
The couple’s lawyer Wayne Condon told the court the incident had been a “wake-up” call and they had stopped taking drugs. They were fined $300 each and ordered to pay court costs.
—Agencies