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6 months ago
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Chilling documents have revealed that child safety workers feared that a meth-addicted mum would use ice and fall asleep a year before her two little girls died in a hot car.
The haunting details were heard at the ongoing inquest into the deaths of Darcey-Helen, 2 and her 18-month-old sister Chloe-Ann, who were left in the hot car by their mum Kerri-Ann Conley outside her Waterford West home south of Brisbane in November 2019.
The two girls were left inside the vehicle for nine hours as temperatures reached a scorching 61.5C.
Conley pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to nine years' jail, to be eligible for parole later this year.
The fourth day of the coronial inquest into the girls' deaths heard that a former Queensland Department of Child Safety officer who worked with Conley before Chloe-Ann's birth feared that the mum would use drugs and might 'fall asleep' if she was the only one looking after Darcey-Helen.
Kerri-Ann Conley (pictured right with Darcey-Helen) pleaded guilty to two counts manslaughter after she left her two daughters in a hot car in 2019
The officer spent six months working with Conley in 2018 through a Department of Child Safety Intervention with Parental Agreement.
The intervention enables child safety officers to work closely with young children and their families, to ensure their safety needs and concerns are addressed.
The department closed the IPA in June 2018 after poor engagement by Conley and her wishes to withdraw.
A referral then made to an intensive family support service for Conley that listed what Child Safety was worried about going forward, The Courier Mail reported.
'You've identified (in the referral) that Child Safety's worried that Kerri-Ann will use ice or other substances when she's the only one looking after Darcey-Helen,' counsel assisting Angelica Monardez read from the document.
''She will fall asleep not paying attention to Darcey-Helen, and that Darcey-Helen will become hurt or injured as a result,'
The officer told the inquest that her concerns were mentioned in a case plan when the department began working with Conley.
'It was a concern of mine that if she (Conley) doesn't have someone to work with regularly that it could happen,' she said.
'It was a relevant thing that we were worried about that could potentially happen in the future.
'We weren't at that time thinking this is definitely going to happen.'
The former officer broke down in tears while giving evidence before the state coroner Terry Ryan, who acknowledged the high-pressured workload of department staff.
'We're not looking to blame a particular individual,' he said.
The inquest into the deaths of Darcey-Helen (left) and Chloe-Ann (right) concludes Friday
Child safety officers raised concerns more a year before the tragedy that Kerri-Ann (pictured) was using drugs and might 'fall asleep' while the girls were in her care
Earlier, the inquest heard how child safety officers had a high caseload with pressure to 'smash out' decisions in response to allegations of children being at risk.
An officer was contacted on November 3 and 4 in 2019 by a doctor and others who were either worried or passed on concerns about Conley's drug use and alleged dealing.
The officer told the inquest the doctor said Darcey appeared healthy and it was her opinion the others' claims were generalised or outdated.
'I was trying to ascertain recency, frequency, severity of their concerns to get something tangible to work with,' the officer said.
She processed initial reports using the department's decision-making tools, taking 20 minutes to do so in 2017 and 10 minutes in 2019 under performance targets at the time.
'There's so much coming in, that is the pressure... on that particular day the direct statement from the team leader was 'smash out as many as you can',' she said.
In both 2017 and 2019 the officer filed a child concern report rather than a child protection notification, which would have required the department to start an investigation and assessment of the claims.
The officer's second decision was submitted just two days before Conley woke up to find she had left her daughters to die over several hours in a hot car.
The officer said there had been 'pushback' in 2019 from investigation officers, who told the intake team leader to send them fewer child protection notifications.
The inquest was told that court orders could have been applied to remove Darcey-Helen (pictured) from the care of her mother at the time the intervention agreement was close to concluding
Barrister Benjamin Dighton, acting for Darcey's father Peter Jackson, asked the officer if she made the wrong decision in November 2019 not to make a notification for Darcey.
'Yes,' the officer admitted.
She said the number of similar claims should have been enough to form a reasonable suspicion Darcey was at risk of harm
Evidence was also presented which detailed how The Child Safety Service was inundated with 600 calls in November 2019- th months' of the girls' death.
A senior department official told the inquest that the massive workload left staff under more stress.
'I had a real level of discomfort around confidence that those child safety officers were able to triage or assess incoming work appropriately,' she said.
Conley is understood to be have listening in from jail during the five-day inquest, which will end on Friday.
Chloe-Ann was just 18-months-old when she died
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