Call to keep mum who let little daughter die behind bars

Tanilla Warrick Deaves was just two years old when she was murdered by her mother's boyfriend Warren Ross.

The little girl was tortured, beaten, and whipped as she struggled with toilet training.

Her mother Donna Deaves allowed it to happen, and could walk free for her role in Tanilla's death as early as this time next year.

Now, Tanilla's stepmother Brooke Bowen is campaigning to keep Donna behind bars.

"Her mother sat there and watched her take her last breath, she doesn't deserve to get out," Brooke told A Current Affair.

Ross was sentenced to 40 years in jail for Tanilla's murder.

Now, police have charged him with assaulting two other young girls in the same period leading up to Tanilla's 2011 death.

Both the girls cannot be identified for legal reasons.

"If these allegations are proven, then these two little girls have to live with the fact that they were traumatised and they were terrorised by a monster, Warren Ross," Brooke said.

The Department of Family and Community Services has admitted they misjudged the "very high risk" Tanilla faced, despite receiving about 30 reports raising concerns.

Brooke has always said the system let Tanilla down, and Ross's actions should have been noticed much sooner.

She told A Current Affair that if Ross were found guilty on the new charges he faced, the department would have to answer for that as well.

Psychologist Ian Wallace said society needed to be much more vigilant about following up on children's claims on such matters.

"They often have a believe that this is just what happens to kids and that means they're much less likely to report it," he said.

Deaves was sentenced to at least nine years behind bars for her daughter's manslaughter.

But Brooke has started a petition calling on parole authorities to keep Deaves in jail as long as possible.

"Consider what Tanilla went through and the fact that medical evidence proved that she might have well been saved had somebody got her help, and that somebody was her mother," Brooke said.

"She was the only one there who could protect her, and she didn't."