12-year-old girl allegedly murdered by mum was too ‘sick’ to attend school for entire term, court told

A mum charged with the murder of her “extremely emaciated” daughter allegedly did not send her daughter to school for an entire term because she was too sick before failing to respond to calls from staff, a court has been told.

Carrissa Kaye Scholten was not brought before Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday as she applied for bail before Justice Elizabeth Wilson.

Ms Scholten is charged with the murder of her 12-year-old daughter, Tiffani, after emergency services made the grim discovery in her Coomera home on April 18, 2022.

She and her former partner, Aaron Paul Richardson, were not arrested until 2024.

That same year, Gold Coast District Vulnerable Persons Unit Detective Inspector Paul Fletcher said police allegedly found the child “extremely emaciated” and evidence from their two-year probe “showed that the care for this child was insufficient and directly related to her death”.

Neither Ms Scholten or Richardson have entered a plea.

It is alleged that Tiffani had a complex medical history, including a diagnosis of Rett syndrome, a rare genetic disorder affecting brain development.

On Monday, Crown prosecutor Julie Aylward said Ms Scholten’s murder charge was on the basis of either “intending to cause her death by failing to provide the necessaries or failing to provide them with reckless indifference”.

The court was told there was evidence that Tiffani was not sent to Southport Special School for the entirety of term 1 in 2022.

Only children of essential workers were allowed in schools for the first week of the term when Ms Scholten was allegedly “actively” trying to get her daughter into school.

But Ms Aylward said following that, with “no contact”, Tiffani was allegedly “just not sent to school”.

“It was the school that was chasing her (Ms Scholten) to find out the position with respect to Tiffani,” Ms Aylward said.

She said Tiffani was allegedly losing weight at this point and no educators saw her for the entire term, until she died.

The child had allegedly been under the care of a paediatrician while living in Port Macquarie on the NSW Mid North Coast, but this changed when Ms Scholten moved to Queensland, Ms Aylward said.

“She had always been around the second percentile … with respect to her weight,” she told the court.

“That had been fairly consistent, but it means that in 2022 she went from being just under that percentile to dying as a result of malnutrition.”

Tiffani would allegedly arrive at school “hungry” and eat “large amounts of food” – leading to Ms Scholten complaining about the school overfeeding her daughter.

Justice Wilson noted that one of the Crown’s submissions was that Tiffani was allegedly not receiving the supplementary nutrition provided by the school when she was not attending.

But defence barrister Martin Longhurst said his client had been “actively” trying to get her child into school for the first week of 2022.

“That’s refused by the school because she’s not an essential worker,” he said.

Mr Longhurst said Ms Scholten had informed the school that Tiffani then became sick, leading to her not attending school.

“It’s accepted the school are trying to get on to the mother and there seems to be either no return of calls or communication … that she’s too sick to come school,” he said.

“It’s not the case that school ends in 2021, the child then goes into this downward spiral and is being kept from the community until death.”

Mr Longhurst said the real question at the heart of the bail application was what kind of risk Ms Scholten posed if granted bail.

She had never offended and there was no suggestion she had interfered with justice, or with witnesses, in the years since Tiffani’s death, he said.

No concerns had been raised to Child Safety and there were no reports of domestic or family violence, the court was told.

“The case against her hasn’t substantially changed from when she first called the ambulance,” Mr Longhurst said.

“It’s really based on medical reports and diagnoses she knew about. There’s no sensational witness that blows my client out of the water,” Mr Longhurst said.

“There’s nothing pointed out – who is she a risk to?”

Mr Longhurst said there was an “open and obvious” alternative case to murder.

“There is a real need to carefully go through this brief and carefully assess the inferences available,” Mr Longhurst said.

“It’s not an overwhelming case, particularly with respect to murder.

“One of the reasons she needs to get out (on bail) is to properly defend it.”

Justice Wilson adjourned the application to Thursday to consider some of the proposed bail conditions, including a suitable address for Ms Scholten.