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She watched her seven-year-old daughter starve to death as a prisoner in her own bedroom.
And now the Australian woman is also a prisoner, after being jailed for life for her daughter's murder.
Described as "unimaginably heartless and cruel" by her sentencing judge, the woman showed no emotion as her sentence was read to the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, calmly taking a sip of water before leaving the dock.
Her husband, who "could not have cared less" by not coming to her aid, will spend at least the next 12 years in prison, the court was told.
Their autistic daughter, known only as Ebony, was a mere 106cm tall and weighed just nine kilograms when she died in squalid conditions at the family's Hawks Nest home, north of Newcastle, in November 2007.
Aged five, Ebony had been a "chubby little girl", but by the time she died, her face resembled skin stretched over a skull and she reeked of urine and faeces, the court heard.
Several doctors testified she suffered from the most severe case of malnutrition they had ever seen.
Justice Robert Allan Hulme described post-mortem photographs of Ebony as "the most horrific images of a deceased child imaginable".
After a five-week trial the girl's 36-year-old mother was found guilty of her murder, and her 48-year-old father was convicted of manslaughter.
The couple cannot be named for legal reasons.
Sentencing the pair, Justice Hulme described Ebony's mother as "cold, callous, cruel and heartless towards her own little girl".
"A person seeing Ebony in that state would realise it was ... a dead set certainty that she was going to die," he said.
"To my mind, for a person to have done nothing in those circumstances is so morally reprehensible that it could be no more serious if the person actually intended that the child die.
"She witnessed her suffering over an extended period and chose not to lift a finger to help."
Ebony was locked away in putrid conditions in her bedroom, which doubled as her toilet, he said.
"It contained a bed and a separate mattress ... there was not a single toy," the judge said.
Ebony was "kept out of public view" and excluded from family celebrations for at least the last 16 months of her life.
"She was a prisoner in her own bedroom," Justice Hulme said.
"One can only imagine what she thought from the confines of her bedroom when the rest of the family were celebrating birthdays and Christmas."
Ebony's father "provided no care at all, and he did not care", the judge said.
"In a gross abrogation of his parental responsibility, (he) simply ignored Ebony," Justice Hulme said.
"(He) could not have cared less. A father could show no less love to his child.
"The abject cruelty that had become her existence was of no concern to him.
His defence that he was so "off his face" on drugs most of the time was no excuse, the judge said.
"(He) was obviously capable of ... studying the form guide," he said.
Ebony's father was sentenced to 12 years' non-parole with a maximum of 16 years.
With time already served, he will be eligible for release on November 16, 2019.
The couple, who have three other children in the care of the Department of Community Services, did not make eye contact throughout proceedings and sat at opposite ends of the dock.
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