Floreat’s starving ballerina: Mother and father released on bail after court granted appeal ahead of retrial

The mother and father of Floreat’s so-called “starving ballerina” have been dramatically released from prison ahead of a retrial. On Tuesday, The West Australian confirmed the parents, who cannot be named to protect the identity of their daughter, had convictions over the alleged abuse against their daughter set aside and were released on bail. Both the mother and father — who were required to pay a personal undertaking of $50,000 and surety of $50,000 — were convicted in 2024 of severely malnourishing their only child and also infantilising her, keeping her in a “Peter Pan” state, refusing to let her grow up. When their daughter was about to turn 17 in April 2021, she was admitted to Perth Children’s Hospital weighing just 28.1kg and placed under the protection of the Department of Communities the following day. It was the average weight for a nine-year-old, while her height was that of an average 11-year-old. Her body mass index was 13.1, compared to a healthy range of 18.5-24.9. Her growth had been stunted, puberty had been delayed, and she had a condition known as lanugo - a soft, feathery hair covering that can develop in people with eating disorders to help keep them warm. Her mother was sentenced to five years’ jail while the father — who also admitted forging his daughter’s birth certificate — was given six-and-a-half years behind bars in January 2025. Both parents immediately appealed for a retrial after being sentenced. The mother failed in a bid for bail in November last year after arguing she suffered a miscarriage of justice because she fell ill during her trial. She argued that her trial was “fundamentally miscarried” when District Court Judge Linda Black refused her application for an adjournment when she fell ill. Instead, the judge, who had been handed a doctor’s note that stated she was suffering from either food poisoning or a stomach bug, ruled the trial could proceed without her physically present in the courtroom, watching from a remote room on video link. In her reasons, Judge Black expressed concern the trial was looking at potentially running weeks over time and that the evidence-in-chief to be given by the witness in her absence was already well known to the woman and would require “minimal input” from her. About an hour into the witness’ evidence, the case was adjourned when the accused flagged she was struggling to follow the matter and was “kind of half dozing off”. The trial resumed the following day and the witness’ evidence-in-chief continued after the mother’s defence lawyer raised that she had been “asleep for a large part of the day, had vomited and at one point she had to leave the remote room to vomit”. “Defence counsel said that the appellant’s eyes were closed and that she was not following the evidence, and had been reported to look dazed and have little idea of what was going on,” the judgement said. But by the end of that day, the mother had “picked up enormously” and had been “writing things” was “awake and going well”, the judge noted. She returned two days later, after a weekend, appearing to have recovered. In ruling against granting bail, Court of Appeal Justice Robert Mazza said that he was unable to find that “the ground has such strong prospects of success as to amount to exceptional reasons for a grant of bail pending appeal”. “The fact that I have reached this conclusion at a relatively early stage in the appeal should not be understood to mean that the ground is without prospects of success,” he said. “It is true, as the appellant argues, that it is unusual, to say the least, for a criminal trial in a superior court to proceed in the physical absence of the accused. “Where this occurs without misconduct by the accused, it requires good reason. “After full argument before a coram of three judges, it may be that the ground is made out but, at the risk of repeating myself, on the basis of the arguments and analysis so far put to the court, I am unable to conclude that ground one has sufficient merit to justify a grant of bail pending appeal.” The mother and father will next appear in the Perth District Court on April 24.