“She was always outside or down in the paddock,” the neighbour said. “She was always at the back of the house, she was always doing things by herself.” On other occasions the woman said she had witnessed the young girl run laps at the property’s back paddock for hours on end; run to and from school along a busy road by herself; and stand in the rain in the paddock. “When you look out your window and you just see a little girl standing in the rain ... I regret [not making a complaint]. I felt sick,” she said. “She’s never spoken to me. You couldn’t get close to her. She was very frightened. A very frightened little girl.” The neighbour said at one point in September 2017, prior to child protection intervention, she had been at her home when she looked towards the shed of the couple’s property and saw a bucket of water tipped over the head of the girl.

“It looked like she had just woken up out of bed ... before school,” she said. “I didn’t see the person who did it.” Loading In her police statement, the neighbour said the girl’s father had told her and her husband they hadn’t known anything was “wrong” with the girl until they adopted her, and they were trying to get her sent back to her home country. “I just thought she was naughty and they were making her do things ... they didn’t want that little girl,” she said. However the mother’s defence lawyer John Hawkins said it was unlikely conversations with the couple had ever occurred, as the neighbour had never spoken to the mother prior to her mentioning the young girl’s issues.

He said it was unlikely the mother would disclose such personal information the first time speaking to the neighbour and it was possible the woman’s evidence had been coloured after she found out about the girl’s claims of being forced to sleep in a shipping container. Mr Hawkins said it was also evident there had been no real reason for concern, as the neighbour had not contacted any social service. The court also heard from a Department of Communities child protective services officer who visited the house after the young girl had failed to come home from school. The officer said she had spoken to the couple about her concerns, and they explained the girl’s issues – including the fact she had previously been bullied at school. “[The mother] said [the girl] was mentally disturbed,” the worker said.

“She was a child with no feelings. They had adopted her from the Philippines and while she was there, she was physically abused.” The worker said the mother emphasised to her the girl was “unclean”, that she chose to wear dirty clothes over her clean clothes, and she didn’t act like a child of her age. The mother claimed they had taken the girl to a psychiatrist and paediatrician but it hadn’t helped her behaviour. When the worker was taken to see the girl’s bedroom, she said she remarked on how “immaculate” it was, given the girl was apparently messy. She said the mother told her she had recently told the girl to clean it up.