No protocol to share information with child safety, police officer tells inquest

A senior Queensland police officer has been quizzed on communications between police and child safety services leading up to death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs.

The officer, whose name has been suppressed, appeared at the Coroners Court today for the inquest into Elizabeth's death in 2022.

The eight-year-old died in her Toowoomba home after her father, Jason Struhs, stopped giving her with insulin for her type 1 diabetes.

Elizabeth's mother Kerrie Struhs had previously served a jail sentence on child neglect charges after failing to seek medical treatment for her daughter in 2019.

Jason had brought Elizabeth to hospital in a comatose state with late-stage diabetic ketoacidosis, before she was diagnosed with the disease.

She was six years old at the time.

Kerrie held extreme religious beliefs, and told investigators she believed God would save her daughter, without the need for medical intervention.

She told a probation officer in late 2021 she still held that belief, even after serving time in prison for child neglect.

Following Elizabeth's diagnosis, Jason — who at the time, did not share his wife's beliefs — assumed responsibility for managing Elizabeth's medical care.

The officer told the inquest that in 2019, there was no protocol for the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and the Department of Child Safety to share information about criminal charges.

He added that he would have assumed child safety workers would have monitored the child neglect case through the media.

The officer told the court that in March 2020, police had no reason to believe the department was no longer involved with the Struhs family.

An Intervention with Parental Agreement (IPA) into the family had finished in December 2019.

In December 2019, a memorandum of understanding between the department and police was established to facilitate the sharing of documents like DV summaries and criminal histories.

By the time Kerrie was released from prison in December 2021, Jason had converted to his wife's religion and over the next month, would withhold Elizabeth's insulin, leading to her death just weeks after her mother's release.

Following Elizabeth's death, the department again became involved over concerns for her younger siblings.

The court heard QPS has since focused more heavily on people who hold extremist beliefs.

In June 2026, police introduced measures to flag those who hold an "Ideology of Concern".

These included religious, racist, and anti-government beliefs.

The officer was unsure whether existing behavioural specialists were consulted over the Struhs matter in 2019.

Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard asked the officer whether a "lack of curiosity" over Kerrie's beliefs had led to a "missed opportunity" for further investigation.

The officer told the court that "the motivation behind the beliefs are not as important as the risks posed by those beliefs".