Chloe Valentine death: Families SA face inquest into death of child forced to ride motorbike (ABC)

Families SA is facing an inquest over its handling of a case involving the death of a child forced to ride a motorbike in 2012.

The South Australian government department was notified several times by people concerned about the welfare of four-year-old girl Chloe Valentine prior to her death, which occurred after her mother repeatedly forced her to ride a motorbike despite crashing.

On the last occasion, she slammed into a tree and was left unconscious for hours.

At a directions hearing held in Adelaide today, coroner Mark Johns said he wanted to probe each of the notifications.

"I think it's pretty clear from what's already in the public arena that there were a number of notifications made to Families SA," he said.

"It's my purpose to work methodically through each and every one of those notifications and to consider what was done in respect of each one of them and why it was done and so on and so forth."

He said a number of statements were taken by police from Families SA employees as part of criminal proceedings, which resulted in the child's mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne, and her former partner, Benjamin McPartland, being jailed for at least four years.

"I want to get it on sooner rather than later, and that's the way I want to conduct the inquest," Mr Johns said.

SA Education Minister Jennifer Rankine said she was supportive of any independent review that sought to "better safeguard children in the community".

A further directions hearing will be held in three weeks.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/24716988/chloe-valentine-death-families-sa-face-inquest-into-death-of-child-forced-to-ride-motorbike/