Qld: Suspended term for cruel parents

AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-2000
Qld: Suspended term for cruel parents

BRISBANE, Aug 24 AAP - A couple convicted of caging and malnourishing their schizophrenic
daughter in horrifying conditions in their suburban home were given suspended jail terms
today.

A prosecutor told the District Court in Brisbane the case was straight out of the X-Files.

Peter Nielsen, 56, and his wife Margaret Ann Nielsen, 63, of Coorparoo, in Brisbane's
inner south, were found guilty by a jury of one charge of failing to provide the necessities
of life to Margaret Nielsen's daughter, Lourene, 34, between December 31, 1997 and August
26, 1998.

They were sentenced to two years jail suspended.

Prosecutor Peter Kelly said the case was straight out of the 18th Century and there
was nothing comparable in recent Australian criminal history.

"This is really something out of the TV series the X-Files," Mr Kelly said.

"That in this day and age that people could keep their daughter caged in these deplorable
conditions ... we have to go back to the 18th and 19th Centuries for anything comparable."

When police were called by neighbours over constant screaming coming from the house,
they found the daughter naked and filthy, huddled in a foetal position in a room that
had no furniture.

The room had plastic sheeting on the floor, cladding covering the walls, bars on the
windows and a steel security door.

The Nielsens' claimed they had a happy family life and the room was "a day room" where
their daughter enjoyed watching television and doing aerobics.

AAP smk/sc/gmw/

KEYWORD: NIELSEN SENTENCE

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