Court in the Act: The tragic case of murdered little girl Safa Annour

Safa Annour was a striking, smiling little two-year-old girl. Her hair was bunched in cute little yellow ties. Her eyes twinkling. Her smile engaging.

And her happy little wave — to the bus driver who dropped her off on Monday, April 30, 2018 — would melt your heart.

That very same day, at just before 2pm, Safa was taken to the Canberra Hospital with injuries that would prove fatal.

A post-mortem examination proved that those injuries — blunt force causing fatal internal bleeding — were caused by another person.

But, the fact that this innocent little girl had been murdered in the nation’s capital was not revealed by ACT Police for more than six months.

When it was finally publicly revealed, along with the CCTV from that bus ride, ACT Police made a public appeal for information — while releasing only tiny snippets themselves.

And since then, over more than five years — almost nothing.

No inquest. No family appeals. No public vigils. No social media outcry.

Which is what bothered journalist Daniel Jervis-Bardy so much.

Dan’s day job is reporting on the corridors of power in Canberra for The West Australian.

But he has also made the murder of this child — and the seeming blank space that followed — his business.

And so, he began his own investigation and wrote an essay about the troubling case — which is set to be published by Penguin Books in the New Year.