Shannon Leigh White, Willow Dunn’s four-year-old stepmother, has been denied bail.

According to a court hearing, a four-year-old girl who suffered from “awful neglect” was so severely starved that an expert discovered she stopped growing eight months before her death.

Willow Dunn’s stepmother Shannon Leigh White and father Mark James Dunn have been charged with the child’s murder and have been committed to stand trial.

According to a court hearing, a four-year-old girl who suffered from “awful neglect” was so severely starved that an expert discovered she stopped growing eight months before her death.

Willow Dunn’s stepmother Shannon Leigh White and father Mark James Dunn have been charged with the child’s murder and have been committed to stand trial.

Willow, a Down syndrome girl, was discovered dead in a house in Cannon Hill, Brisbane, on May 25 last year, but it is thought she died two days earlier.

White appeared to have a solid manslaughter case, according to Barrister Paula Morreau.

However, because of the’significantly huge case,’ the court was advised that the trial could take up to a year, even though White had already been in prison for two years.

Justice Boddice expressed his dissatisfaction with the length of the preliminary study.

‘I don’t think you have to worry that she’s served too much time even on the manslaughter on the basis of what is terrible neglect,’ he told Ms Morreau.

‘The allegation is months and months of neglect supported by the extreme lack of weight of the child at death.’

White, a mother of seven, is accused of committing reckless homicide by depriving Willow of food and other requirements of life for a period of time, causing her to become substantially underweight and show “clear evidence of extended neglect” when she died, according to Justice Boddice.

Willow was half of the lowest allowable weight for her age, had stopped developing around eight months before her death, and her extreme malnutrition would have been visible, according to expert evidence.

White had a compelling reason to depart Queensland, according to Justice Boddice, because she feared a mandatory life sentence if convicted of murder and her children lived outside the state.