Gaps in child protection procedures, departmental workloads, and inter-agency communication are under intense scrutiny as a Queensland coronial inquest examines the 2022 death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs. Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard is leading the inquiry to determine whether state authorities missed critical opportunities to protect the young girl from her family’s religious sect, which rejected modern medicine.
Elizabeth died on January 7, 2022, at her family’s home near Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, after her father, Jason Struhs, stopped administering insulin for her type 1 diabetes. Her death occurred just weeks after her mother, Kerrie Struhs, was released from prison following a prior child neglect conviction linked to a near-fatal 2019 medical episode.
Medical Warnings and Institutional Decisions
The inquest has heard detailed testimony regarding the initial red flags raised by medical specialists in July 2019, when Elizabeth was rushed to Toowoomba Hospital and subsequently airlifted to the Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane in a comatose state suffering from severe diabetic ketoacidosis.
Paediatric intensive care staff and endocrinologists warned child safety authorities at the time that Elizabeth faced an extreme risk of harm if she was returned to her mother, who openly rejected medical science in favour of the beliefs held by a local religious group known as “the Saints.” Despite warnings that Kerrie Struhs showed no remorse and continued to believe God would heal her daughter, child safety officers ultimately returned Elizabeth to the family home under a short-term Intervention with Parental Agreement (IPA).
Witnesses testified that the primary case worker assigned to Elizabeth’s file carried a heavy caseload of approximately 25 to 28 children across 15 families, operating in one of the busiest child safety regions in the state. The case worker conceded to the court that Elizabeth’s file was not prioritized as complex and admitted she may have been overly influenced by the respectable presentation of the Struhs household, while departments prioritized cases involving more immediate physical danger.
The Role of Police and Information Sharing
The inquest also scrutinized communication protocols between the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and the Department of Child Safety during the 2019 investigation. A senior police officer testified that no formal protocol existed at the time to automatically share criminal charge information between police and child safety workers following Kerrie Struhs’s initial neglect charges.
The officer noted that investigators assumed child safety personnel would monitor related criminal matters through public media reporting. However, subsequent policy shifts have led police to establish measures to track individuals holding extreme ideological beliefs, including religious, racist, and anti-government convictions.
Legal Repercussions and Wider Implications
Following Elizabeth’s death in January 2022-during which adult members of the Saints gathered around her to pray and sing while her condition deteriorated-all 14 adult members of the sect, including both parents and group leader Brendan Stevens, were convicted of manslaughter. In 2025, Elizabeth’s parents received 14-year jail terms at the Brisbane Supreme Court.
Coroner Kirkegaard is evaluating whether current legal frameworks and risk-assessment guidelines provide child safety officers with adequate authority to remove children from environments where faith-based healing is prioritized over life-saving medical intervention. The inquest is expected to continue examining departmental decision-making matrices and inter-agency cooperation.
