When Michelle Leask noticed her bruised baby girl having trouble breathing and unable to make eye contact, she wanted to take her for medical treatment.
But the then 21-year-old mother was terrified into inaction, fearful of the possible violent reaction from her abusive partner, who was more concerned about concealing his small cannabis plantation than his ailing daughter's welfare.
Their baby, Lili Cataldo, died in hospital on May 8, 2012, and Leask was sentenced yesterday to five years in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the Brisbane Supreme Court.
But she has walked from court, with Justice Martin Burns wholly suspending the jail term, due to Leask's vulnerability and substantial impairment stemming from the abuse inflicted by her partner and Lili's father, Rick Cataldo.
On the evening seven-week-old Lili died, Leask found the pale, unresponsive and limp baby lying on a bed behind her sleeping father.