Childcare centre and worker face sentencing after toddler dies trapped on fence
Parents and supporters attended Darwin Local Court as the Humpty Doo childcare centre and employee Casandra Lee Harris pleaded guilty to failing to protect a toddler who died after becoming stuck on a fence.
Darwin Local Court heard sentencing submissions on Thursday as the Humpty Doo Community and Child Care Centre and employee Casandra Lee Harris pleaded guilty to failing to protect children after 22-month-old Ebony Thompson died from choking on a loop-top fence. The toddler had been left unsupervised for up to ten minutes while her group washed hands, wandering to a chicken coop where a blind-spot fence trapped her neck.
A coroner’s inquest in October 2025 found the death preventable and blamed both the centre’s supervision strategy and the regulator Quality Education and Care Northern Territory for failing to manage the fence risk. Judge Stephen Geary called the supervision lapse the heart of the tragedy and postponed sentencing to November 3. The centre has since upgraded safety measures, but families have withdrawn children and the incident has spurred calls for “Ebony’s Law” to ban such fencing and impose stricter supervision penalties.
Why it matters
The case exposes serious childcare safety gaps and regulatory failures, prompting calls for stricter supervision rules.
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