Elizabeth Struhs’s child-protection case was not prioritised, inquest hears

Summary

At an inquest into the 2022 death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs, the Queensland coroner heard that her child-protection case was not prioritised or handled intensively because the assigned worker was very busy. The court also heard the worker may have been overly influenced by the presentation of Struhs’s upper-class home, with cases believed to pose a more immediate risk taking precedence. This follows earlier reports that doctors recommended an involuntary mental-health assessment for her mother and that a child-safety officer assessed Struhs as safe the day after she was admitted to hospital in a coma.

Timeline

1. The Guardian

   16 Oct 2026, 07:20 UTCSource ↗

   The Guardian reports that an inquest heard Elizabeth Struhs’s child-protection case was not prioritised because the assigned worker was very busy, and that the worker may have been influenced by the presentation of Struhs’s home.