The grandmother of a toddler who died of head injuries from a motorbike accident said she has reconnected with one of the people responsible for the tragic death, her own daughter.
Belinda Valentine lost her granddaughter Chloe, 4, after the girl was forced to ride a 50kg motorbike that repeatedly crashed over a three-day period in the backyard of her Adelaide home in January 2012.
The girl eventually succumbed to the injuries she sustained and died in her hospital bed, The Advertiser reported.
The girl's drug-addicted mother Ashlee Polkinghorne, 27, and her violent, then-partner Benjamin Robert McPartland, 35, were jailed on manslaughter charges and given a non-parole term of over four years.
On Thursday, Polkinghorne was released on parole.
Belinda Valentine (pictured) lost her granddaughter Chloe, 4, after the girl was forced to ride a motorbike that repeatedly crashed over a three-day period in the backyard of her Adelaide home in January 2012
The girl eventually succumbed to the injuries she sustained and she died in her hospital bed
Polkinghorne is also the daughter of Ms Valentine, who said she directed nothing but ill-feelings towards her child for some time.
It wasn't until the death of Polkinghorne's grandmother that the mother and daughter started to speak, and started to heal.
'When you’re in the midst of it, we thought "we’ll never repair this",' Ms Valentine said.
'But we’ve had to recognise how deep our unconditional love for our children actually is and we’ve had to learn to separate Ashlee's behaviour from who she is.'
Before Chloe died, Families SA received 20 abuse notifications from friends and family concerned about the girl's filthy, transient and unsafe living conditions.
Coroner Mark Johns said Polkinghorne was often given the benefit of the doubt by social workers, who helped clean her house and avoided confronting her about her drug use.
Mr Johns described Polkinghorne as an 'accomplished and manipulative liar' who easily fooled her case workers.
'Ashlee was given virtually limitless opportunities to address her problems,' he said.
She was also provided with three supported
