Families SA used an unsupervised chauffeur to send 16-month-old Chloe Valentine back to her “paralytic” mother hours after she had abandoned her, an inquest has heard.
Chloe was four when she died of massive head injuries after being forced to ride a motorbike that repeatedly crashed in the backyard of her Adelaide home in January 2012.
But social worker Katrina Heading told the inquest on Monday she considered removing Chloe in November 2008 after her “paralytic” mother Ashlee Polkinghorne left her with a 15-year-old friend while she drank at the beach.
Chloe’s grandmother reluctantly agreed to take her but when an angry and abusive Polkinghorne finally surfaced, a supervisor decided Chloe should be returned to her mother.
Heading said Chloe was sent home unsupervised with a private chauffeur because there were only two crisis care staff working that night.
She said the chauffeur company conducted police checks on its workers but Families SA did not have access to those checks.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Naomi Kereru, questioned whether it was appropriate for a 16-month-old child to be left unsupervised with a private driver.
She asked why Heading had not pushed harder to have Chloe removed, given Families SA had received multiple abuse notifications.
“You knew that this woman had left her child with a 15-year-old so that she could consume alcohol … that’s concern enough, isn’t it?” she asked.
Heading said she had backed her supervisor’s judgment, despite having reservations about Polkinghorne.
“It took me by surprise but I had faith in my supervisor … (to make) tough calls in tough situations,” she said.
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“When you’re caught up in the moment, you can get over-emotional.”
The inquest into the girl’s death has heard her short life was marred by horrific squalor and chronic neglect but she was never removed from her drug-using mother.
Polkinghorne, 22, and her boyfriend Benjamin Robert McPartland, 28, forced her to ride the motorbike over three days.
The inquest continues.
