Daily London
Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find distressing.
An Adelaide court has heard harrowing new details in what’s now emerged as one of the worst child neglect cases in South Australian history.
The court heard today that meth-addicted Northern Suburbs mother Crystal Hanley, 49, took drugs and laughed off the deteriorating condition of her six-year-old daughter, Charlie Nowland, until she took her final breath in her filthy home.
Charlie died from severe malnutrition in 2022. When she arrived at hospital, the court was told, she was in a “physically deplorable state”, weighing just 18 kilograms, wearing a nappy, and infested with lice.
Sergeant Haydn Evans, who attended the scene, described the lasting impact of the case.
“I can still smell the house,” he said.
“What happened to Charlie is an atrocity.”
Angela Dente quit her career as a nurse after trying to save Charlie’s life.
“My colleagues and I attempted washing her as the last thing we could do for her,” she said.
“It was in vain… (she had) baked on dirt on her hands and feet you couldn’t even scratch… off.”
Hanley sobbed as Charlie’s siblings delivered victim impact statements, with one saying, “I had to be a parent to Charlie because you weren’t”, while the other said “all you cared about was drugs when you should have cared about us.”
Neighbours had observed Charlie’s deteriorating health, noting that her legs became so swollen she was unable to walk.
However, Hanley joked about her daughter’s condition, saying, “she’s got cankles, she’s a d—head and she won’t walk”.
Hanley wrote a letter to her children, apologising for failing them all as a mother, saying she wishes she could turn back time and will have to live with Charlie’s death for the rest of her life.
Prosecutors say Hanley knew about her daughter’s condition and did nothing.
