The guardians of an autistic boy are behind bars after they pleaded guilty to neglect and physical abuse following a violent outburst when he refused to do the dishes.
The seven-year-old boy’s foster parents from regional Western Australia, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, fronted Perth District Court on Thursday.
The court heard the foster mother, 31, asked the boy to do the dishes in April 2023 but he refused and kicked her, leading her to push him into a wooden table where he hit his head and was knocked out, reported WA Today.
The woman called her partner, 33, who returned to the house and helped to put the boy, who was still unconscious, into a hot bath because he was cold.
The court heard the water was far too hot and burned a quarter of his body, requiring skin grafts, but the little boy didn’t react because he was unconscious.
The couple put the boy to bed, despite him yet regaining consciousness and returned the next morning to find him unresponsive with his eyes rolling back.
At 2pm that afternoon they finally took the boy to hospital where he was found to have suffered a bleed to his brain and was airlifted by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to Perth Children’s Hospital for surgery.
He recovered but has a brain injury, a scar from the surgery and has required multiple skin graft operations.
An autistic boy, 7, was pushed back into a wooden table and hit his head, suffering a brain bleed, when he refused to do the dishes and kicked at his foster mother (stock image)
It was nearly a full day before the boy’s foster parents took him to hospital where he was airlifted to Perth for surgery (stock image)
The foster mother later told police the boy had hit his head while faking a seizure.
She also told them she wouldn’t hurt her children but added she ‘used to’ hit them until she realised she was ‘getting like her mother’.
Police found a text message she had sent her partner, who is the boy’s biological uncle and father to their three children, complaining that ‘the c****’s broke the door’.
‘Just don’t lay into him any more. We can’t risk s*** going wrong. Just lock him in the bedroom,’ the man replied.
The boy’s biological mother, from NSW, had suggested her brother and his partner look after the child after a previous placement in Queensland did not work out.
Over their regular video calls, she noted the boy’s attitude had worsened since moving to WA and he would often be wearing long clothes despite the warm weather. Police later said they found multiple bruises on the child.
The court heard the boy had been diagnosed with autism, ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder and the foster parents had been unprepared to manage him.
However, Judge Linda Petrusa said they couple had both agreed to take the boy and had not sought help or requested he be moved on.
The couple’s biological children are in the care of the state.
They are due to be sentenced on October 4.
