PARENTS charged with the starving murder of their 18-month old twins almost five years ago will face trial in July.
The mother, 34, and the twins' 33-year-old father will stand trial on two counts each of murdering the toddlers, a boy and a girl, and for failing to provide them with the necessities of life on July 22.
Crown prosecutor Michael Byrne SC told a trial review in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday he expected the hearing to run for at least two weeks and possibly three.
He told Supreme Court Justice Peter Lyons he expected a psychiatric defence would be raised on behalf of the children's mother.
Mr Byrne said expert witnesses would be called to give evidence at the trial, including a general practitioner, pathologist, paediatrician and psychiatrists.
Barrister Soraya Ryan, on behalf of the toddler's mother, said she would seek a pre-trial direction relating to the Crown's particularisation of the murder charge levelled at her client.
Mr Byrne said he expected the half-day pre-trial hearing would examine how the Crown would particularise when the "intent" to murder was formed in the lead-up to the children's deaths.
It is alleged the twins were starved to death at the couple's home on Brisbane's southside between December, 2007 and 2008.
At a committal hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court in November, 2009, it was revealed the decomposed bodies of the toddlers were found on June 16, 2008.
A post-mortem examination found they died of malnutrition and weighed just 3.6kg and 4kg.
It heard the children lived at the small single-storey home with the couple and their three brothers and a sister - aged between three and 11 - at the time of their deaths.
The couple cannot be named under Queensland law to protect the identities of their children.
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