SYDNEY: A seven-year-old Australian girl allegedly starved to death despite the fact community workers had been monitoring her family for most of her short life, reports said on Wednesday.   

Shellay Ward weighed just nine kilograms (less than 20 pounds) when she was found dead in her bed on Saturday, the reports said. Her father, Blakeley Ward, denied she died from lack of food but acknowledged that police had told him that starvation combined with dehydration had killed her.   

"Starvation, we didn't starve her," he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper. "She was born small, she was a tiny kid." The case has sparked a series of investigations, including into the conduct of the New South Wales Department of Community Service which had been supervising the child's family for years.   

Police are also investigating but no charges have yet been laid. NSW state Premier Morris Iemma said he found it 'difficult to come to terms with a child starving to death in our community'.   

"We're a modern, prosperous state. I know there are pockets of severe disadvantage, but I shake my head that a child dies, allegedly, through starvation," he said.