Parents who starved ballerina daughter get prison as she begs for their release

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.

They parents, however, claim this was all a result of their daughter choosing to be vegan — and being a picky eater.

Judge Linda Black said it was clear the parents loved their daughter, who is now 20 years old, but still blamed them for trying to keep her a “little girl” far too long.

“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.

“You isolated your daughter, you prevented her from growing up, you prevented her from developing in the way she was entitled to. You did keep her as a little girl long beyond the age where she should have been,” Black said.

Neither the parents nor their daughter have been publicly named in the case due to Australian privacy laws.

The girl, who grew up sheltered as she was homeschooled by her mother, was only socialized through dance classes, Black said.

While she was physically stunted from lack of nutrition, her parents also babied her well into her teenage years, the judge claimed, noting they would only let her consume media meant for much younger kids, like Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine.

During the trial, her father claimed she was a “fussy eater” and took on vegetarian and vegan diets but still ate three meals and snacks each day.

“My client didn’t starve his kid … He never withheld food from her,” his attorney, Oliver Paxman, told CNN. He loved and spoiled his daughter. She was free to eat as much as she wanted. This case was about inadequate nutrition from a vegan diet,” Paxman said.

“Every parent on this planet knows that if you don’t give a child enough food they will starve. But what if your kid chooses to be vegan?”

Black, the judge, however, refused to believe the couple – who also lied on numerous occasions about their daughter’s age in an apparent attempt to cover up the fact that she was severely malnourished.

“It seems that everyone in the world who had the opportunity to interact with [the girl] understood she was severely malnourished, except the two people who professed to love her. I simply cannot accept that you didn’t see it. I simply cannot accept that you didn’t notice,” Black said.

The girl was hospitalized when she was 17 and had a body mass index of 12.5 — far below the healthy range, between 18 and 25.

“She was wasted, according to the doctor, with limited body fat. She was pale. She was exhibiting no signs of puberty. Her hair was brittle and thin. Her skin was dry and flaking. Her heart rate was elevated. The doctor said they needed to do an ECG. And the two of you said no,” Black wrote in her ruling.

At one point, the parents refused doctors’ orders to insert a nasal tube to allow their daughter to be fed – prompting authorities to step in and place the girl in state custody.

“There is nothing unusual in a parent wanting to cling onto their child and be reluctant to let them go and mature and become an adult. Nothing unusual at all,” Black said during sentencing remarks. “What is wrong is when a parent prevents the child from embarking upon and completing that natural process.”

“One of your greatest failures was a belief that you could give her what she wanted and failing to give her what she needed,” she continued.

“Every parent knows it’s harder to say no to your child than to say yes. You chose to make the easy decisions rather than the hard ones.”

Despite this, the girl advocated on behalf of her parents, appealing in a letter to the judge to drop the prosecution.

“I’m fully dependent on my parents,” she wrote. “All my living expenses are paid by my parents, including clothes, food, money as I need it. My university fees are being paid by my parents.”

“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.”

While her father admitted to forging her birth certificate, both parents denied all other charges. Judge Black said that since they had taken no responsibility, she saw no reason not to jail them.

“You have shown no remorse. You have shown no acceptance of responsibility. You have shown no insight,” she said.

Paxman, the father’s lawyer, told CNN his client was “very disappointed” by the outcome and was considering his legal options.

The girl, as well as a lawyer for her mother, did not respond to their request for comment.