Social media influencer manufactured symptoms that caused one-year-old to have brain surgery, Brisbane court hears | Queensland

A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard.

The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations.

On Tuesday, a decision on her bail application was postponed in a Brisbane court, after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people”.

The Sunshine Coast woman – who can’t be named for legal reasons – appeared before the court on Tuesday morning 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 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 opposed bail and told magistrate Stephen Courtney 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.

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 reengage 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.”

The accused will appear by video link on Wednesday morning to hear the magistrate’s decision.