The parents of three young children have been sentenced in Western Australia’s District Court after they left their kids home alone for days on end at their semi-rural property with access to guns and ammunition.
The mother and father – who cannot be identified to protect their children – faced court last month, where it was revealed the father was away from the home north of Perth for weeks at a time as a fly-in, fly-out worker, while the mother would travel to Perth for three to four days at a time to establish her new day spa business.
The pair left the children – aged eight, nine and 11 – on their own multiple times in early 2024 to feed and bathe themselves, take care of the property’s animals and get themselves to and from school via the bus stop, which was over a kilometre away.
The children had a mobile phone to contact their parents with, but the court was told that at times they couldn’t get through to them.
In June 2024, there was an attempted burglary at the house while the mother was home, with the court told she was recorded in a call to police “crying and being upset that [she was] there all alone with the three children while [her husband] was away”.
However, the woman continued to leave the children alone while she stayed in Perth – more than 100 kilometres away – for half the week, every week.
At the end of July, police turned up at the house with a search warrant.
“The front door was unlocked, a gun safe was found opened under a bed with a shotgun and a .22 rifle laying next to it,” Judge Christian Miocevich told the court during the couple’s sentencing.
“There was also ammunition. It’s unknown how the gun safe came to be open, but it’s clear it was, and it would have been open when the children were there left unsupervised and to fend for themselves.”
An examination of the mum’s phone by police showed the children called their mother more regularly after the attempted burglary, but most of those calls would go unanswered.
The children spent eight days at the property alone over the two-week school holidays across June and July 2024.
“Due to the young ages, the isolation of the house, the hazards that exist in young children cooking, cleaning, and taking care of large horned animals, and the vulnerability of having potential access to dangerous instruments such as cars, quad bikes and guns at such young ages,” Miocevich said.
“In essence, these were young children on their own in a house left to fend for themselves.
“The potential for harm to them from the natural hazards found in houses such as simply chemicals for cleaning, fire or from those on a semi-rural property with animals and quad bikes are obvious.
“What is concerning is they were left on their own after the attempted break-in, which was again an obviously frightening experience for them.”
Asked why she left the children alone, the mother told report writers ahead of her sentencing, “you don’t know my kids”, and they were “not regular kids”.
“Whilst I’m sure they are all those things, and I am sure you love them dearly, they are still children,” Miocevich said during sentencing.
“They are not adults. They are not equipped to handle emergencies and should not have been left to fend for themselves.
“You are the parents, not them. It was your responsibility to look after them. They are children.”
The children were removed from their parents’ care for three months after their arrest before the dad gave up his FIFO job to take care of them.
The court heard the couple’s offending was “born out of financial pressures”, with both having to meet work commitments.
“This is not a situation of parents not looking after their children because of drugs, alcohol or simply, the parent doing what they want to do,” Miocevich said.
Each parent was charged with three counts of having the care and control of the child, engaging in conduct knowing that the conduct may result in harm to the child which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years each.
While he told them they showed “an appalling lack of judgement”, Miocevich handed both parents an intensive supervision order with program and supervision requirements for 12 months.
“I also hope that you get some help in relation to how you deal with the stresses both financial and otherwise in your lives,” he said, before adding: “I am fairly positive that I will never see either of
you two again.”
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