Bull ants in starving 7-year-old's mouth: trial

A NSW couple accused of murdering their seven-year-old daughter must have neglected her for months before her malnourished body was found with "black vomit and bull ants" oozing from her mouth, a jury has heard.The parents were arrested at Albion Park Railway Station in November 2007.The jury at the NSW Supreme Court murder trial, which began in East Maitland yesterday, was told a medical expert would testify the child was the most malnourished he had seen.They were warned some photos may be as confronting as Holocaust images.The girl was found dead in a bedroom at her family's Hawks Nest home on November 3. Crown Prosecutor Peter Barnett SC said a post-mortem examination showed she was 106cm tall but just 9kg when she died. She had weighed 20.5kg on February 14, 2006 - the last time she was weighed by a doctor. "The face was distorted due to muscle wasting and (there was) no fat under the skin," Mr Barnett said. "The urine smell persisted even after the body was washed with cleaning agents."The doctor found the child died of long-lasting starvation and neglect." Outlining an interview with police, Mr Barnett said the father claimed the mother could not resuscitate the girl because of "black vomit and bull ants coming from her mouth". He told police he couldn't believe his daughter was dead, saying she had been well the night before. "He denied she was starved and said they 'fed her like anything'," Mr Barnett said. "He said all their children were looked after like gold." Mr Barnett said the father told police his daughter, the youngest of four children, had been "bubbly, smiling in the last days". The mother sobbed during the Crown's opening address, her face buried in tissues. The family cannot be named for legal reasons. The trial continues today.