Counsel Urges Victorian Coroner to Refer Birthkeeper Emily Lal to Prosecutors Over Evidence in Stacey Warnecke Death

A recording found on a dead woman's phone is now at the center of a possible criminal referral in Melbourne.

Rachel Ellyard, counsel assisting Victorian Coroner Therese McCarthy, told the inquest into the death of Stacey Warnecke that Emily Lal may not have told the truth under oath. She urged the coroner to refer Lal to the Director of Public Prosecutions over possible perjury and other offences. No charges have been filed. The decision belongs to McCarthy.

What happened to Stacey Warnecke

Warnecke, a 30-year-old nutritionist and wellness influencer, gave birth to her first child, a son named Axel, at her Melbourne home in September 2025. She had chosen a free birth, meaning no medical professionals were present. Her husband, Nathan, and Lal were with her.

She developed a postpartum haemorrhage, was taken to Frankston hospital, and died there on September 29, 2025. She had paid Lal $6,000 to support her through the pregnancy.

Birthkeepers are not clinically trained and are not part of a regulated health profession. Midwives are.

The recording

The inquest began in June. Closing submissions were delayed while investigators did a forensic analysis of Warnecke's phone. When hearings resumed, the court heard a recorded call between Warnecke and Lal from January 2025, roughly 30 minutes long. It also heard messages from a WhatsApp group Lal ran for women choosing free birth.

On the call, Warnecke said she wanted no tests and pictured a "wise woman" beside her who could look her in the eye and say she was fine. "Am I dying or am I alright?" Warnecke asked. She also told Lal she was afraid of hospitals.

Lal replied: "You should be scared of the hospital." She called it "a terrifying place" and said the key to staying home was that "your mindset and your condition needs to be so solid."

Lal also said that when a hospital "does seem tempting," her clients could "push past that." She described late-labor pleas to go to hospital as unconscious "self-sabotage," and told Warnecke she would reach a point where she thought, "actually, I'm dying."

The allegations against Lal

Ellyard told the court that Lal "saw her role as to groom her clients into being strong enough to resist the temptation to seek medical help during labor, to seek pain relief during labor, to go to hospital during labor." She said going to hospital would have represented a failure in Lal's view.

Ellyard said that was "inconsistent with the idea of a friend who just pulls your hair back and wipes your forehead." She described Lal as presenting herself as an expert through advice, referrals and supplement sales.

Lal told the court in June that Warnecke hired her mainly as a supportive friend, and that the payment was for her time, not medical advice. She also said she was not clinically trained and that it was not her responsibility to make the birth safer or to call an ambulance unless specifically asked. Ellyard said the recording "sharply contradicted" that account.

She also said Lal may have committed offences "in connection with the advice she purported to give and the services that she purported to offer to Stacey and other women." In Ellyard's words, Lal was not authorized to engage in any form of medical education or support, yet on one view of the evidence held herself out as capable of giving expert advice.

The legal exposure

Lal testified in June after receiving a certificate against self-incrimination. It protects her answers from use in later proceedings, on the condition that she told the truth. It does not cover false evidence. Perjury in Victoria carries a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Ellyard said it would be open to McCarthy to find that Lal "wasn't truthful in her evidence." A referral, she said, "could be made in relation to perjury."

Lal ran a business called Authentic Birthkeeper for five years. She told the court in June that she did not want to continue after Warnecke's death. Phone messages suggest otherwise, the court heard. A month after the death, Lal allegedly told the WhatsApp group she had deactivated her Instagram because of "things going on" and would take clients by word of mouth.

Lal was offered the chance to return and respond to the claims. Neither she nor a lawyer appeared, and she declined to take part further.

The limits of the allegation

Ellyard did not put all the weight on Lal. She said Warnecke was already drawn to free birth ideology when she first contacted Lal. She added that Warnecke and her husband were never adequately warned of the risks of birthing at home without medical support.

The inquest is also examining whether Warnecke would have survived with earlier medical intervention, and what risks free birth carries.

Ellyard's submissions are recommendations to the coroner, not findings. McCarthy has not announced whether she will refer Lal, and no date for her findings has been given. Whether prosecutors would then bring a perjury charge is a separate question that has not yet been tested.