Please note: This article contains content that some may find upsetting.

An Adelaide court has recently been presented with chilling details in what is being described as one of the most severe child neglect cases in South Australian history.

The court was informed that Crystal Hanley, a 49-year-old mother from the Northern Suburbs, reportedly addicted to methamphetamine, ignored the worsening health of her six-year-old daughter, Charlie Nowland. Despite her daughter’s deteriorating condition, Hanley continued using drugs and dismissed concerns until Charlie tragically passed away in their unkempt home.

Charlie succumbed to extreme malnutrition in 2022. Upon her arrival at the hospital, it was revealed in court that she was in a “physically deplorable state.” Weighing a mere 18 kilograms, she was found wearing a diaper and was infested with lice.

Sergeant Haydn Evans, an officer who arrived at the scene, recounted the case’s profound impact on him.

“I can still smell the house,” he reflected somberly.

“What happened to Charlie is an atrocity.”

Angela Dente quit her career as a nurse after trying to save Charlie’s life. 

“My colleagues and I attempted washing her as the last thing we could do for her,” she said.

“It was in vain… (she had) baked on dirt on her hands and feet you couldn’t even scratch… off.”

Hanley sobbed as Charlie’s siblings delivered victim impact statements, with one saying, “I had to be a parent to Charlie because you weren’t”, while the other said “all you cared about was drugs when you should have cared about us.”

Neighbours had observed Charlie’s deteriorating health, noting that her legs became so swollen she was unable to walk. 

However, Hanley joked about her daughter’s condition, saying, “she’s got cankles, she’s a dickhead and she won’t walk”.

Hanley wrote a letter to her children, apologising for failing them all as a mother, saying she wishes she could turn back time and will have to live with Charlie’s death for the rest of her life.

Prosecutors say Hanley knew about her daughter’s condition and did nothing.