A social media influencer allegedly gave her baby multiple drugs that led to a cardiac arrest and manufactured symptoms that caused unnecessary brain surgery as part of a plan to gain fame and money online, a magistrate has heard.
Queensland police have accused the woman of filming the torture of her one-year-old infant after administering drugs to worsen the symptoms of her brain tumours.
The 34-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, applied for bail in Brisbane magistrates court on Tuesday after she was arrested and charged with a string of offences earlier this month, including: five counts of administering poison with intent to harm, three counts of preparation to commit crimes with dangerous things and one count each of torture, making child exploitation material and fraud.
Crown prosecutor Jack Scott opposed bail and told Magistrate Stephen Courtney the woman posed an unacceptable risk of offending or interfering with witnesses if released.
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Scott said the woman did not accept that her infant had a manageable and non-fatal condition.
“Her actions have created a serious extra symptom … on one occasion a code blue cardiac arrest requiring resuscitation,” he alleged.
The court heard the infant had been hospitalised for tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), a genetic condition that results in benign tumours in multiple organs.
Scott said on 3 October 2024 the woman had moved a video camera that was monitoring the infant during a brain activity test “to avoid detection” of her actions.
“She was captured on footage with a syringe. She administered via the nasogastric tube [attached to the infant]. She used the opportunity while hidden by a blanket,” he said.
“About 30 to 40 minutes after this incident [the baby] was rendered completely unconscious.”
Scott outlined the evidence against the woman who he alleged had admitted to her then partner to administering medication not prescribed for the toddler. He also alleged that hospital CCTV footage would show her with a syringe and “fiddling” with the infant’s nasogastric tube while the little girl was hidden under a blanket. He alleged that the toddler was “rendered totally unconscious” shortly after in a way that could not be explained by “any known condition” she was suffering from.
Scott said these unconscious periods were not symptoms of TSC and were deeply concerning to the infant’s doctors, who then brought forward a risky procedure to remove the tumours.
Scott alleged that the woman had moved a video camera that was monitoring the toddler during a brain activity test “to avoid detection”.
“The prosecution case is, in essence, that she was torturing her own child with the administering of non-prescribed medicines,” Scott said.
He also alleged that the woman told police a “bald-faced lie” that she didn’t knowingly fill out scripts for medication that the child had been advised against taking.
Police allege the poisoning occurred between 6 August and 15 October last year, when the woman is accused of administering several unauthorised prescription and pharmacy medicines to the one-year-old girl.
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Police allege the woman posted videos of the child in “immense distress and pain” and used the online content to “entice monetary donations and online followers”.
Scott said the child exploitation material charge was related to videos allegedly found on the woman’s phone and she had caused life-threatening complications.
“This child would not have faced [two rounds of brain] surgeries at this point in time but for this manufacturing of symptoms,” the prosecutor said.
Scott opposed the bail application, based largely on the alleged risk of the woman reoffending against the child. He argued that such was the accused’s determination “to see out” her perception that the child suffers from a fatal illness that there was a risk she would continue to “manufacture” medical symptoms that had ceased since the child had been taken into care, including unconsciousness, lethargy, floppiness and vomiting.
“My concern, or the concern of the Queensland police service, is that the only way she can justify her behaviour thus far is to re-engage with the child and to continue to create a situation where the child presents [as] someone suffering from a disease that it otherwise isn’t,” he said.
Defence lawyer Mathew Cuskelly sought bail on a number of “strict conditions” that he said would ameliorate any risk to the child, including residency and reporting conditions, that her contact with the child be limited to supervised, audio visual contact and that she not contact any relatives who may be witnesses.
Cuskelly argued that the case against his client was largely circumstantial and that the complexity of the case meant his client may not face trial for a considerable amount of time, with the magistrate agreeing it was “not inconceivable” that that may not occur for “two or three years”.
Courtney said that it was his tentative view that the prosecution’s case against the woman appeared very strong, but that he needed time to absorb it and that the level of offence in and of itself wasn’t a factor when considering bail.
“Ordinarily, bail applications are fairly straightforward matters,” he said. “This isn’t.”
Cuskelly said outside court that the woman was doing well in custody and declined to comment on the case.
The accused will appear by video link on Wednesday morning to hear the magistrate’s decision.