Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame will hand down her findings on Thursday in the inquest of a nine-month-old girl whose father heard voices before he drowned her in a river.
The circumstances surrounding the death of the child, known as baby Q, were examined during a five-day inquest at the NSW State Coroners Court in December last year.
The inquest was told the infant was thrown into the water at Jack Evans Boat Harbour in Tweed Heads, on the NSW and Queensland border, on the evening of November 17, 2018.
Her body washed ashore two days later on the sand at Surfers Paradise, more than 30km north.
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In the hours leading up to the nine-month-old’s death, her father tried twice to give her away to passers-by in the park.
Before 7pm, the court was told he held the baby in his arms as he walked towards Jack Evans Harbour and threw her into the Tweed River.
One of the main questions for the inquest was whether the nine-month-old girl drowned or whether her father suffocated her before throwing her into the river.
The court was told the baby’s father was an Indigenous man living with schizophrenia and alcohol-dependence disorder who previously reported suffering auditory hallucinations.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Donna Ward SC, told the inquest that the man had heard voices telling him to kidnap and drown a baby and hallucinations telling him he was Jesus.
He was not taking his antipsychotic medication at the time of his daughter’s death.
The baby’s mother has also experienced past hallucinations “of a religious bent” and experienced mental illnesses characterised by mood disturbance, manic episodes and delusions.
The young family had been homeless and sleeping rough in the days before the nine-month-old was killed, the inquest was told.
On the morning of her death, police discovered the baby and her sibling wearing only nappies and sleeping in between their parents in a park in Tweed Heads.
A key focus of the coronial inquest was to learn why the safety net of police, child safety agencies and homeless agencies had failed in their duty to care for the infant and her sibling.
“They were not taken care of as they should have been,” Ms Ward said.
“The safety net that should have caught (the baby) failed (her).”
In the months leading up to the tragedy, the inquest was told the homeless family had interacted with government and non-government agencies in NSW and Queensland.
When the inquest began in December last year, Deputy State Coroner Grahame stressed it was an opportunity to understand what went wrong and how responses could be improved.
“This is an absolutely heartbreaking death of an absolutely beautiful First Nations girl,” she said.
“We are conducting this inquest out of respect for that baby’s life.”