A 39-YEAR-OLD MOTHER has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison with the final six months suspended for beating, starving and neglecting seven of her children over a five-year period, often leaving them for days on end in the care of men they didn’t know.
The woman, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the children, was found guilty in January following a nine-day trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court on 29 charges of child cruelty and neglect.
She was convicted of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, or abandoning seven of her children, or causing or allowing the children to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, or abandoned, in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to the children’s health or seriously affect their well-being, at six different locations on dates between 1 September 2006, and 12 May 2011.
Charges relating to an eighth child were withdrawn from the jury at the end of the trial.
Jointly charged
The woman’s former partner (48), who cannot be identified either, had been jointly charged with the woman with 42 counts of cruelty and neglect. He pleaded guilty to five of the charges last December.
Last week, he apologised to the children and thanked their foster parents for taking such good care of them now. He said he regretted not being able to protect them.
He was given a two-year suspended sentence today on condition he continue with his rehabilitation in relation to alcohol abuse. The court was told last week that the children had forgiven the man.
In court
A number of the children were in court for the sentence hearing this afternoon, accompanied by their various foster families and care workers.
They sat together at the back of the courtroom while their mother sat a short distance away in front of them.
Imposing various concurrent sentences ranging from one year to four-and-a-half years on all 29 charges, Judge Karen O’Connor said of particular concern to the court was the fact that the children had remained under the radar of the authorities since 2006, until they were taken into care in 2011.
Judge O’Connor said the mother’s attempts to blame one of the children for her offending behaviour, while all of the children were traumatised at witnessing incidents of sustained violence against their siblings over the five-year period, were also disturbing factors in the case.
Another aggravating factor, the judge said, was that the mother had put her children through the trauma of having to give evidence at the trial.
She referred to psychological reports on the children, which had indicated they had all suffered enormously at having to attend their mother’s trial and give evidence against her.
Recalling the graphic evidence presented to the jury in January, Judge O’Connor said the circumstances of the case were that there was general neglect and a failure to look after the most basic needs of the children.
This was coupled with drunkenness; images of shabby, neglected children with their shoes falling off their feet; neighbours having to feed them; an environment of violence, an atmosphere of fear; images of very young, frightened, anxious and helpless young children being beaten or watching their siblings being beaten.
During the trial, the children gave evidence through taped interviews that she regularly beat them with her fist, with wooden spoons, a wooden back-scratcher or with leather belts.
They were terrified of their mother and she often left them alone for days on end, while she went drinking. They said she was regularly absent – sometimes for up to a week at a time – while they were left in the care of their mother’s drunken male friends. They had no way of contacting her and there was little or no food in the house.
The mother would come home hungover and would beat them for no apparent reason.
Evidence was given that the mother flew into a rage one day and tried to drown one of the children in the kitchen sink. On another occasion, she hopped one of their heads off a kitchen counter, causing it to bleed.
Another child was pushed him down the stairs on two occasions while she laughed at the resulting injuries.
The children said their mother regularly lined them up and poured washing up liquid down their throats. Two of them were also thrown out of a car before she tried to run them over.
Former neighbours told the trial they had fed and clothed some of the children and had alerted social services. They said the children always looked “malnourished, shabby, scruffy, neglected and uncared for”.
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