A Queensland coronial inquest has begun examining whether government agencies could have done more to protect eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs before she died after being denied life-saving insulin in 2022. The hearing, which opened in Brisbane on Monday, 12 October 2026, is separate from the criminal proceedings in which 14 members of a fringe religious group, including the child’s parents, were convicted of manslaughter. Its focus is the way public authorities responded to warnings and information they received before Elizabeth’s death.
Elizabeth had type 1 diabetes and relied on insulin. She died of diabetic ketoacidosis after the treatment was stopped in January 2022, while members of the home-based religious group known as the Saints believed in healing through prayer rather than medicine. Those central facts were examined in the earlier criminal case. The coroner’s hearing does not need to rerun the criminal trial to ask a different question: whether the child protection, health, education, police and corrections systems had opportunities to intervene sooner or differently.
Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard is conducting the inquest, which the Queensland Coroners Court lists for 12 to 23 October at a Brisbane courtroom. The published issues are unusually broad, spanning the government’s response to reports and family circumstances dating back to 2013. The hearing is scheduled to consider decisions taken in 2019 and the risk assessment associated with Elizabeth’s mother’s release from prison. It is also examining whether relevant agencies’ policies and procedures were adequate then and what has changed since the death.
The court’s official list identifies Child Safety and the Department of Education as among the agencies whose responses in 2013 are under scrutiny. For 2019, the scope widens to include Children’s Health Queensland, Darling Downs Hospital and Health Service, Queensland Police and Education. The review of Queensland Corrective Services concerns the assessment and management of risks around Kerrie Struhs’s release on parole. Naming these agencies defines the inquiry’s scope; it does not mean the coroner has already found that each one failed or that any official committed an offence.
The inquest is expected to hear from 30 witnesses, most associated with agencies that had contact with the family. According to the ABC, almost all witnesses have had their identities suppressed by court order. Restrictions of that kind serve legal purposes and should be respected in public reporting. It would be irresponsible to guess the identities of protected witnesses or link public employees to untested allegations. Their evidence is to be examined in the context of the formal process, including any explanation of what information they had at the time.
On opening the hearing, the coroner acknowledged Elizabeth’s older sister, Jayde Struhs, and the anguish that renewed public examination could bring for the family. The ABC reported that the coroner wanted the hearing to include an understanding of Elizabeth as a child, not only as a subject of departmental records. That perspective matters. Investigations of institutional decisions can become dominated by forms, thresholds and bureaucratic terminology, but the purpose of the scrutiny is to understand whether a vulnerable young person was adequately protected.
One of the first matters addressed concerned a report made to Child Safety in 2013. The inquest heard that this led to a lower-level Child Concern Report rather than a Child Safety Notification, the latter being the pathway that would trigger an investigation. The report raised concerns about isolation, restrictions on children and what was described as a controlling religious environment. A witness said the information did not at that stage meet the threshold for formal escalation, an assessment she maintained even with hindsight.
That evidence illustrates why the inquiry must distinguish a warning that becomes significant later from information that was reasonably available to a decision-maker at the time. A tragic outcome can make earlier reports appear unequivocal, but the coroner must examine what was actually communicated, the applicable legal thresholds, the assessment made and the alternatives available. Such scrutiny may reveal errors or gaps; it may also show why a decision was reached under rules operating at the time. Neither conclusion should be assumed before the witnesses have been heard.
The family’s contact with health professionals in 2019 is another significant part of the history. Reporting from the current hearing described concerns raised by medical staff after Elizabeth became critically unwell, including worries about her mother’s approach to the child’s treatment. The inquest is investigating the subsequent contact and decisions across health and child-protection services. The existence of those concerns is important, but it remains for the coroner to evaluate whether the responses complied with duties and whether a different action might have protected Elizabeth.
The criminal history involves serious and established findings. Fourteen members of the fringe group were convicted of manslaughter in 2025. Some had originally faced murder charges, but the convictions reported from the trial were for manslaughter. Reporting must not convert the more serious original charges into convictions or treat all religious members of a wider faith community as somehow implicated. This was a specific small group with beliefs and actions examined by a court. The wider issue of religious freedom is not a defence of withholding essential medical treatment from a child.
The distinction between the criminal and coronial proceedings is fundamental. A criminal court considers allegations against accused people and determines whether the prosecution has proved offences to the required standard. A coroner investigates a death and may examine systemic issues and make recommendations to reduce the risk of similar deaths. In this case, convictions already explain parts of the immediate cause, while the inquest asks whether public systems identified danger and responded adequately before it became fatal.
One of the agencies under scrutiny is Queensland Corrective Services. The official inquest list refers to the assessment and management of risk connected with Kerrie Struhs’s release from custody on parole. The details of those decisions, what each department knew and how information was exchanged are matters the hearing is expected to test. It is not enough to identify that a parent had previously been involved in court proceedings and conclude automatically that officials ignored a legal duty. The coroner must evaluate evidence of what the authorities knew and what powers or obligations they possessed.
The Department of Education’s inclusion in the scope likewise does not mean an individual teacher or school worker has been found responsible. Schools may observe children over time and form part of reporting pathways, but the inquest must examine the actual contact, records and escalation requirements in this family. That may involve understanding what concerns were reported, to whom, how they were categorised and whether they should have prompted further action. Until the hearing establishes the relevant facts, broad blame directed at unnamed frontline staff would be unfair.
The central difficulty in safeguarding children is that information can sit with different institutions at different moments. A hospital may observe medical distress; a school may see changes in attendance or wellbeing; child-protection staff may assess reports against statutory criteria; police and corrections authorities may hold other information. A coronial examination of interagency coordination can therefore be valuable even where no single communication clearly predicts a death. The question is whether the system, considered as a whole and under the law that applied, responded appropriately.
There are limits to what can be concluded at this early stage. The coroner has only begun hearing witnesses, and an official list of issues is not a findings document. Nor do the convictions of the adults in the faith-healing group answer every question about earlier agency decisions. Anyone characterising the hearing as proof that government departments caused Elizabeth’s death would be going beyond the established record. The evidence may support recommendations, criticism or other findings later, but their content remains unknown as of the opening day.
Reporting should also preserve Elizabeth’s dignity. The public does not need graphic recreations of her suffering or speculative descriptions of her family’s final hours to understand the significance of the case. The confirmed medical cause, the established manslaughter convictions and the questions the coroner is examining are sufficient to explain why the hearing matters. The response to an extreme set of beliefs should focus on the specific conduct at issue rather than generalising about religion or people who practise faith in ordinary circumstances.
For parents, health workers and people concerned about child safety, the inquest may eventually clarify whether warning signs moved effectively between services and whether policy changes could reduce future risk. Those are potential outcomes, not conclusions. The process has been scheduled for two weeks and will involve extensive evidence, much of which may be highly technical or subject to legal restrictions. A fair account will have to distinguish a witness’s observation, an agency’s defence, submissions by counsel and the coroner’s eventual findings.
As hearings continue, the essential chronology should remain visible. Elizabeth was a child with a condition requiring insulin; she died in 2022 after it was withheld; 14 adults were subsequently convicted of manslaughter; a separate inquest opened on 12 October 2026 to examine whether state authorities could have protected her better. The consequences for the family cannot be undone. What the coronial process can still do is build a reliable record of earlier decisions and, where justified, recommend steps to prevent other children being placed at similar risk.
