A father heard voices telling him to kidnap and drown a baby years before he murdered his nine-month-old daughter by throwing her into a river, a court has heard.
The circumstances surrounding the death of the child, known as baby Q, are being investigated in a five-day inquest at the NSW State Coroners Court.
On November 17, 2018, the child was thrown into the water at Jack Evans Boat Harbor in Tweed Heads, on the NSW-Queensland border.
Her lifeless body washed up two days later on the sands of Surfers Paradise on Queensland's Gold Coast, more than 30 kilometers north.
The photo shows the scene where baby Q was found in the water. Her father had heard voices telling him to drown a baby
On the morning of her death, police discovered the child and her sibling wearing only nappies as they slept between their parents in a park in Tweed Heads.
The inquest heard that police attempted to move the family to accommodation in a nearby town, but they returned to Tweed Heads less than twelve hours later.
In the hours leading up to the nine-month-old baby's death, her father twice tried to give her away to passersby in the park.
Before 7pm the court heard he held the baby in his arms as he walked to Jack Evans Harbor and threw her into the Tweed River.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Donna Ward SC, said a key question for the inquiry into the child's death will be whether she drowned or whether her father suffocated her before throwing her into the river.
While “a great deal of evidence” pointed toward the first conclusion, she said it “does not rule out the possibility” that the baby's father smothered her as he carried her to the water.
The court heard the baby's father was an Indigenous man who suffered from schizophrenia and alcohol addiction and who had previously reported suffering from auditory hallucinations.
Ms Ward said he had heard voices telling him to kidnap and drown a baby, hallucinations being greeted as Jesus, and that he had experienced a delusion involving Britney Spears.
“We are not claiming that delusions from many years earlier predicted his actions,” she said.
The man was not taking his antipsychotic medication at the time the baby died, the court heard.
The inquest will examine the family's movements on the day the nine-month-old child was killed, including what her father did to cause her death and where her mother was at the time.
The nine-month-old baby was thrown into the Jack Evans Boat Harbor (pictured) in Tweed Heads
The court was told that the child's mother had also had hallucinations 'of a religious nature' in the past and had suffered from mental illnesses characterized by mood disorders, manic episodes and delusions.
At one point she told crisis workers she had moved from Queensland to NSW to escape domestic violence.
But she also denied on several other occasions that domestic violence was a problem.
Ms Ward said the nine-month-old child and her sibling were 'completely dependent on the adults around them to care for them'.
“They weren't being cared for the way they should have been,” she said. “The safety net that was supposed to catch (the baby) failed.”
A key focus of the coronavirus investigation will be to determine why the police, child safety agencies, homeless agencies and other institutions have failed in their duty to protect the child.
Ms Ward acknowledged that everyone involved in the response to the family 'wanted to help these children'.
“None of them were malicious in the things they did or didn't do,” she said.
Ms Ward said families had a 'constellation of risk factors' for which they were offered 'band-aid solutions' such as food or temporary accommodation.
She questioned whether the frequency of the incidents should have “raised alarm bells” among first responders in NSW and Queensland.
The inquest heard the father was found not guilty of murdering his baby by the NSW Supreme Court due to mental illness.
The child's mother was charged with failing to care for her child and causing danger to her life, but she was discharged under the Mental Health Act.
Ms Ward said the inquest was an important step in honoring the 'important', 'loved' and 'valued' nine-month-old baby.
“It's very easy to get angry when you read about (the baby) and her short life and her death,” Ms Ward said.
“Your Honor's investigation is an attempt to understand what went wrong here and an attempt to understand what we can do better.”
Pictured are toys, balloons and notes left in tribute to baby Q on Surfers Paradise beach
If the baby had been alive, she would have been five years old and would have completed her first year of school this year.
Magistrate Harriet Grahame acknowledged the tragedy of the circumstances on Monday morning.
“This is an absolutely heartbreaking death of an absolutely beautiful First Nations girl,” she said.
“We are conducting this investigation out of respect for that baby's life.”