Sentenced: Parents Found Guilty Of Starving Ballerina Daughter To Keep Her A Little Girl Forever

[Sugar Cookie]

The Australian parents who severely malnourished their daughter on a strict diet, apparently to make her remain a little girl forever, were sentenced to prison terms this week.

In November, a jury found the parents, both 47 and from a wealthy suburb of Perth, guilty of engaging in conduct that caused their child to suffer by failing to provide adequate nutrition, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC.net) reported.

In 2021, the girl weighed just 60 pounds at age 16, prosecutors said, ABC.net reports. She became so emaciated that she had to be hospitalized and placed on a feeding tube, according to WA Today.

Authorities withheld the parents’ identities because their daughter, now 20, was a minor when the crimes took place.

The parents were also found guilty of failing to provide emotional, social and functional development to her, ABC.net reports. The father, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to forging his daughter's birth certificate to make her seem younger than she was.

On Jan. 31, the dad was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail, and the mom was sentenced to five years in jail, according to ABC.net.

The daughter appeared in court on Friday to support her parents, who were immediately taken into custody, WA Today reports. She began sobbing when the sentences were announced, ABC.net reports.

During the trial, prosecutors told jurors how the parents tried to keep their daughter a little girl by dressing her and treating like a preschooler, even though she was 16, WA Today reports.

They homeschooled her, which kept her isolated much of the time, the outlet reports.

When people did see her, they were shocked by her yellow skin and skeletal appearance, prosecutors said, WA Today reports.

Defense attorneys argued that all of this happened because the whole family suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, 9News reported.

Before the sentencing hearing, the daughter had written a statement to the judge saying that she didn’t believe she had been wronged “in any way,” WA Today reports.

Black said she would take the contents of the letter into consideration, but also noted that the daughter might not fully understand what happened to her because she had been so isolated growing up, WA Today reports.

Authorities began investigating the parents after being tipped off by girl’s ballet teachers, who noted they were concerned about how gaunt the child had become, ABC.net reports.

The daughter was taken into state custody when the parents refused to allow her to be given a feeding tube, despite her low weight, prosecutors said, ABC.net reports.

Parents Found Guilty of Starving Ballerina Daughter to Keep Her a Little Girl Forever Learn Fate

The judge said the parents infantilized their daughter, now 20, telling them, 'She’s never been allowed to grow up'.

people.com

 

[cubby]

Did they think no one would notice that their daughter looked like a a walking skeleton? This young woman really and truly needs a therapist.

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

You know there’s a problem when the ballet teachers think you’re too thin…. Poor girl

 

[Aedia]

That girl is going to need so much help! It's the only life she's ever known, she has been kept away from other people for the majority of her time on the planet, so of course she doesn't think it's wrong. It's like the Allegory of the Cave; the shadows are the beings and the sound comes from the shadows themselves. You can convince anyone of anything when you isolate them long enough.

You know there’s a problem when the ballet teachers think you’re too thin…. Poor girl

I had the same thought! Even my elementary school ballet teacher was awful. They certainly seem to have, most earned, reputations.

 

[Ella Mayo]

That girl is going to need so much help! It's the only life she's ever known, she has been kept away from other people for the majority of her time on the planet, so of course she doesn't think it's wrong. It's like the Allegory of the Cave; the shadows are the beings and the sound comes from the shadows themselves. You can convince anyone of anything when you isolate them long enough.

I had the same thought! Even my elementary school ballet teacher was awful. They certainly seem to have, most earned, reputations.

The ballet choreographer George Balanchine told his dancers to "eat nothing" and would rap their sternums and ribs with his knuckles and insist that the audience must "see bones." Of course, they were adult volunteers, not helpless, isolated children. He died of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, so there's apparently some justice. Maybe this girl will thrive and heal, somehow.

 

[Freyja]

I have a feeling that neither of them missed any meals themselves...

 

[BuffettGirl]

My Mom has ballerina brain when it comes to food and nutrition. Her idea of going on a diet is to eat nothing for 24+ the time to the next meal. So if you ate breakfast one day, you don't eat again until lunch the next day, and dinner the day after that. Then you eat nothing for an entire day, then you get breakfast. So three meals to get you through four days. She thinks that's normal. She got so used to hearing about how "fat" she was at 5'2" and 95 lbs., that she thought nothing of saying things like "You'd be SO cute if you just lost five lbs." to my sister and me, because that's what every preteen girl wants hear, Amirite? She wasn't being cruel, she thought that's how it was done...

 

[Turd Fergusen]

Parents who starved, babied teen ballerina until she weighed 60 lbs. get prison — but daughter begs judge to drop charges​

Parents of a teenage ballerina who weighed just 60 pounds — who forged her birth certificate to make her seem appropriately sized for her age — have been sentenced to prison, even as their daughter pleaded with the judge to drop all charges.

The parents were sentenced last month in Perth’s District Court of Western Australia for neglecting their 17-year-old daughter, who was left with brittle hair, flaking skin and was so malnourished she was at risk of cardiac arrest or death, CNN reported.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/16/world...er-get-prison-as-she-begs-for-their-release/#
“This is not a case about a malnourished ballerina,” Black said while sentencing the father to six and a half years in prison and the mother to five.

Parents who starved, babied teen ballerina until she weighed 60 lbs. get prison — but daughter begs judge to drop charges

“I love my parents very much. They are the most important people in my life. If my parents go to prison, I don’t think I’ll be able to cope,” the victim, now 20, told the judge.

nypost.com

 

[cubby]

The poor girl doesn't know any different, she thinks love is keeping you at skin and bones so you can be a ballerina. I have seen some slightly chubby ballerinas tho, so it is possible to be meaty and a ballerina.

My mother was tall and slim and was ashamed to have a short fat daughter. If I wanted something I had to run laps around the house.