Parents Questioned Over Phone Use and Sheet Retrieval Before Twin Deaths

A coronial inquest has heard the parents of deceased twin boys could not explain mobile phone usage and why the father retrieved a sheet off the clothesline in the hours before the babies were found dead.

The 18-week-old twins, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, died in their Far North Queensland home in late 2021.

Born at 27 weeks' gestation, the twins had been at home on oxygen for about a month before they died.

On the first day of the inquest in Cairns, Coroner Melinda Zerner said there were a "number of inconsistencies in evidence which have not been addressed".

In giving evidence to the court, the parents — who also cannot be identified for legal reasons — said they were asleep until the father found the dead babies about mid-morning.

The mother said the infants were bathed and went to sleep about 8pm or 9pm in the parents' room.

The court heard the mother settled them after that and went to sleep herself about midnight.

The court heard the father woke the next morning about 10am.

"They were stiff and cold, and I tried resuscitating them," he told the court.

The court heard one of the babies had purple colouring on the left side of his face.

The mother was woken by her own mother crying in the room, "Shouting wake up, wake up, look at your boys", the court heard.

The father told the court he was playing computer games and watched movies in the same room in which the babies slept and went to sleep about 1:30am or 2am.

But the court was shown one minute of footage from a neighbour's security camera showing a man at the couple's house go downstairs about 3am and remove a sheet from the washing line before shaking it off and returning inside.

The father told the court that while he couldn't recall doing that, he confirmed to the court he was the only male adult upstairs in the home that night.

Council assisting the coroner, Laura Reece KC, also questioned the father about data use on the couple's shared mobile phone between 3:18am and 5:55am.

"I can't remember using my phone at that time," the father told the court.

To which Ms Reece said: "Someone was awake using the phone in that room."

The mother told the court she had slept through the night and also did not use the phone.

The court heard the parents cared for the infants in shifts, with the father staying awake through the night to bottle feed and then napping during the day.

Coroner Zerner asked the father why the babies were not fed for more than 12 hours before their death.

"There's no evidence to suggest, or nobody has provided a version to say the twins woke at any time from 9pm through to 11am. Can you explain that?" the coroner asked.

To which the father replied: "No, I can't."

The coroner indemnified the parents against criminal charges based on truthful evidence and enquired if any police officers were in the courtroom.

The inquest continues.