Parents convicted of cruelty to child (9) left with catastrophic brain damage

A married couple has been convicted of the neglect and cruelty of their daughter who has been left dependent on carers for the rest of her life after suffering catastrophic brain damage.

The Dublin-based 39-year-old man and his 36-year-old wife had pleaded not guilty to two charges of assault causing serious harm and three charges of child cruelty at the family home in Dublin on dates between June 28th and July 2nd, 2019.

The parents are originally from north Africa but came here some years ago. They cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the child. The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all counts.

The jury heard evidence that at one stage the father told a detective that he had carried out a ritual to get a “devil” to leave the child’s body.

After a 12-day trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, a jury of six men and five women found each parent guilty of all counts. Judge Martin Nolan thanked the jury for their service.

Judge Nolan remanded the couple in continuing custody until their sentence date on January 24, 2022 and asked that any reports be obtained before that date. Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, asked that a victim impact statement be directed. She said this would not be from the victim herself, but on her behalf from her carers. The charge of intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to the child on July 2, 2019 relates to the brain damage suffered as a result of a trauma to the head carried out on that date.

The trial heard medical evidence that the brain injuries were a result of a combination of blunt-force trauma and violent shaking of the head.

One medical expert said that bruising around the face was indicative of blows to the face such as caused by punching. He said the child suffered swelling of the brain and subdural haematoma, or bleeding between the skull and the brain surface, and had bleeding in both eyes.

The injuries to the head were the cause of the child losing consciousness and ultimately suffering permanent neurological damage.

Disfigurement

The couple also stand convicted of intentionally or recklessly causing serious disfigurement to the child, causing her serious harm, on occasions between June 28th and July 2nd, 2019. This charge relates to multiple bruises, bite marks and burns found on the child after she was hospitalised on July 2nd.

Two of the neglect charges relate to each parent allowing the other to assault the child. The final charge is one of wilful neglect of the child in a manner likely to cause her unnecessary suffering or injury to her health or seriously to affect her wellbeing by failing to provide adequate medical aid.

The victim’s sister testified that she saw her sister unconscious and naked at about 11.30am and that her mother said she thought her sister was dead.

Her mother called the father at work at about 1.30pm and on this video call she said: “I told you I was going to kill her, why didn’t you stop me?” The father arrived home from work shortly after 3pm, but only called an ambulance at 10pm.

He and his wife later lied to doctors and gardaí, claiming that he had arrived home only that evening. They also claimed the girl’s head injuries came from a fall from her bike days earlier and a fall in the shower that day. Medical experts said the injuries were consistent with non-accidental injury.

During the Garda investigation, the father told a detective that he wanted his daughter to be happy so he had contacted a friend who is a ruqyah, an Islamic faith healer. The father told this man his daughter was not sleeping or eating and that she was saying “that the djinn was inside her”, referring to the Islamic idea of a djinn or spirit.

The couple moved to Ireland around 2011 and in March 2019 their eldest daughters, including the victim, moved to Ireland to join them.

Their younger brother, now aged nine, told Ms Rowland that when his two sisters arrived, his sister was initially happy, "but afterwards no". He said this was "because my parents hit her".

He said his mother used a leather belt and a phone charger to hit her and she would strike her on her arms, legs and back. He said his sister would cry and scream in pain.

He said his mother would hit his sister whenever she ate slowly and she would count down while his sister was eating. He said that on two occasions, his mother bit his sister on the arm.

He said he saw marks and red bruises on his sister’s body. He said on one occasion, he saw his father pinning his sister up against a wall while he choked her with one hand.

He said his sister’s feet were in the air pointing straight down and she was making a choking sound. He told the jury that his father then let go and his sister “dropped on the ground”.

He said she was laying on the ground. The child testified that his mother told him that his father is “teaching her a lesson”.

Ms Rowland asked the child if he ever heard anyone speak of demons and he said yes, adding “the whole demon thing was all planned”.

He said his sister was on her knees in the living room with a towel over her head and his father opened up the door to the apartment balcony “and said for something to be gone”.

Asked what the thing was, the boy replied “I dunno, some evil thing”. He said: “It was sort of planned, it’s all fake” and said his father “was just trying to scare us”. He said that at the time, he was scared.

He described another incident when his mother put a hot knife on his sister’s arm and his sister was screaming while his mother laughed. He said he smelt burning and he felt sorry for his sister.

Under cross-examination from James Dwyer SC, defending the father, the boy said that the father was not present when his mother did this.

On another occasion, his mother got a “weird spray” and sprayed it on his sister’s “private” parts after making her take down her underpants, the boy testified.

He said that on the day the ambulance came for his sister, he saw his sister lying on the floor “with her eyes open, but she couldn’t see”.

“My mum thought she was dead for a second. She was saying she might go to jail,” the boy testified. He said his mother got a pair of pliers and said to his sister, “If you don’t wake up, I’m gonna pull you with these pliers in your private part.”

He said his mother then did this and afterwards began begging for his sister “to wake up”. He said there was “stuff that looked like foam” coming out of his sister’s mouth.

The now 14-year-old sister of the victim told the trial that she and her younger sister lived in their native country until March 2019. They travelled to Ireland to join their parents and said was excited to come to Ireland, but that soon after their arrival her parents changed and “started to act different”.

She said her mother used to wake her sister up during the night and begin hitting her. She said her sister wasn’t allowed to play outside because she had bruises all over her body.

She said these were bruises from her mother hitting her sister with a belt and sometimes a stick. She said her mother would hit the girl all over her body.

She said she hid the belt once “because I didn’t want to see [HER SISTER]get hurt”. She said when their mother found the belt she hit both the girls with it.

She said her mother sometimes punched her in the stomach and once she punched her in the face and caused her lips to bleed. She said her mother would pull her sister’s hair out, leaving bald spots on the girl’s head.

The witness said that once she told her mother that her grandfather had told her it’s illegal to hit children. She said her mother told her “you’re my daughter and I can do anything I want with you and it’s not illegal” and hit her.

She said that her mother was “really mad” on an occasion when her sister wet herself and she forced the child’s hand on to a red-hot cooking hob. She said her mother then cuffed the child’s hands and her feet together using strong tape before using a hot knife to burn her sister’s feet. She said her sister was screaming.

She said she saw her father choking her sister once by holding her up in the air with both hands. She said her sister passed out and their mother was slapping her saying “she’s faking it”.

She said there were other times when her father punched and kicked the complainant. She said on one occasion she locked her into the dark attic for up to half an hour while her sister begged to be let out.

On the morning of July 2, she heard her mother shouting and heard banging and then her mother called her. She saw her sister lying naked and passed out on the floor and slumped up against a wall.

Her mother said that her younger sister had wet the bed and she took her into the shower and that she then peed in the shower and “so she had to get punished”, the witness said.

She said her mother said “we can’t let anyone know this.” She said her mother looked scared and said “I’m going to go to jail”.

She said her mother rang her father and said to him “I did it, I told you I was gonna do it, I told you I was gonna kill her, why didn’t you stop me?”.

She said her father arrived home soon after and moved her sister and said “she might get better”.

“They didn’t want to call an ambulance,” she told the jury.

She said eventually they did call for an ambulance, but before the ambulance arrived “they said we need to make up a story”.

“I thought it was normal - hitting us and all. I didn’t think it was wrong. They told us if you wanna come back with us, they said, not to tell, just say [HER SISTER]fell in the shower, so I did,” she testified.

Under cross-examination, she accepted that she initially lied to gardaí by telling them her sister had fallen in the shower. She said her mother told her to say this.

She told gardaí that when her father arrived home he was shouting to his wife “what did you do to her, why is she so sick, why are there all the marks?, are you crazy?”. The witness told the jury “he didn’t say that, I was lying, I was scared”.