Elizabeth Struhs child safety case not prioritised due to workload, inquest hears

An inquest into the death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs has heard that her child protection case was not "prioritised" or worked intensively because the officer assigned to it was "very busy" and carrying a large caseload.

Elizabeth died on 7 January 2022 of diabetic ketoacidosis at her family home in Toowoomba, Queensland, after her father, Jason Struhs, stopped providing insulin for her type 1 diabetes. A long-term sceptic of his wife's beliefs, he converted in 2021 and joined her religious sect, which subscribed to an extreme form of Christianity and denied the use of medicine.

Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard is holding an inquest into the death. She has previously heard that Elizabeth came to the attention of child safety after a 2019 incident in which she presented to hospital in a coma.

Seventeen weeks of intervention

Child safety ended its involvement with the family after just 17 weeks of what was supposed to be an intensive intervention, assessing Elizabeth as "safe". The department released her back into Jason's sole care over the objections of specialist doctors who treated her in Brisbane, subject to a voluntary intervention with parental agreement (IPA).

The single child safety officer assigned to the case told the court on Friday that her approach was not intensive and that she did not make weekly check-ins during that period, despite departmental guidelines. In a statement presented to the court, she said she had wanted to visit the family at least once a week in line with IPA team guidance, but recalled being regularly out of the office travelling to visit other families. One home visit to the family was conducted by a student working in the team at the time.

She said the case was not treated as complex, which she acknowledged it should have been. At the time she had a "big caseload" of approximately 25 to 28 children across 15 families on the same intervention. The coroner has previously heard that the Toowoomba region was among the busiest in the state for child safety.

Counsel assisting Simon Hamlyn-Harris said most of those cases involved significant domestic violence, drug use and sexual abuse, and that she was not often required to work with "upper class families" like the Struhs. The case worker agreed she may have been "overly influenced" by the presentation of the Struhs home, and said other cases involving children at more immediate risk may have been prioritised.

She also told the court she may have had a bias because her own child had nearly died of type 1 diabetes at age six, and that she had asked not to be assigned to the case.

'Organisational pressure'

Several witnesses have told the coroner they expected the intervention to last months or a year, but the case worker said IPAs were supposed to last no longer than three months because they were an intensive approach. Kirkegaard asked another child safety witness whether they felt "organisational pressure to get a matter like this finalised quickly". The witness said "absolutely", adding that an IPA could be intrusive and potentially harmful to a child if dragged out, but that she did not believe it affected their decision-making.

On 13 November 2019 a more senior child safety officer assessed Elizabeth as "safe" and the intervention ended.

The case worker told the coroner she had not appreciated the danger of Elizabeth's mother's church group, which was considered a source of support for the family. She said in her statement that Jason had agreed to continue treating his daughter against his wife's beliefs, and that she had "faith" he would leave Kerrie if she stood in the way.

All 14 adult members of the sect, known as the Saints, were convicted of Elizabeth's manslaughter last year, including her parents, Kerrie and Jason Struhs, and the group's leader, Brendan Stevens. None of the witnesses can be identified for legal reasons.

Source: The Guardian.