As soon as some adults know that they become father or mother, they live in the concern of being bad parents. In fact, they will adapt their words, their gestures, their attitude to try to avoid the slightest trauma to their child. However, in Adélaide in Australia, this concern seems not to have touched the parents of a little boy of 6, who are accused of having simulated his cancer.
According to an article by the Guardian, the father and mother of the little boy, both aged 44, have notably shaved their child’s head and eyebrows in order to collect financial aid for imaginary treatment. Parents are accused of criminal negligence, deception, and of having fraudulently collected 60,000 dollars (around 57,000 euros). Among the other misdeeds inflicted on the child: trips in wheelchair and bandages to imitate a radiotherapy treatment.
The couple will appear before the Court of First Instance of Adelaide and risks a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. The acting assistant commissioner, John Decandia, cannot come back: he “Could not imagine a more sneaky and more cruel stratagem than that suffered by this child through his parents.”
Money raised online and at school
Parents would have appealed to donations on the Gofundme fund collection site, as well as through the private school in which the child was registered. In the space of two weeks, the couple would have collected around 60,000 dollars. In the text calling for financial assistance, the little boy’s parents said that stadium eye cancer had been diagnosed with him with “Three tumors on and around the optic nerve”. An entouroupe that cannot remain unpunished, according to John Decandia: “It is unacceptable that, out of greed and selfishness, people seek to take advantage of a disease as terrible as cancer, which affects so many families.”
The case was reported to the police on November 26, 2024. After an investigation in connection with the child’s school and the child protection services, the research confirmed that “The child does not seek to be treated, and we think that the simulated disease causes deep psychological damage to the child and his sister”. The latter two have been removed from their parents’ care, and a family member takes care of it pending legal decisions.
A traumatic event for the young boy who, according to John Decandia, “Will need continuous support, because thinking that we have cancer and that you are not healthy is quite devastating.” Unfortunately, if the spirit of Christmas generally tends to reveal the beautiful souls, it must be believed that it also lets the most devastated spirits escape.
