A troubled 14-year-old girl, described by a consultant psychiatrist as the "saddest child" he had ever met, is to be moved from a State detention centre to a more suitable one by order of the High Court yesterday.
The girl, who has an "absymal" family background with an alcoholic mother and a father who allegedly sexually abused her, was described by Mr Justice Kelly as a child "who never had a chance" when the case came before him last December.
On that occasion, the court heard the marriage of the child's parents' had been characterised by violence and they had separated. The girl had been left unsupervised on occasions when her mother went drinking, and the girl had used alcohol and drugs and engaged in unprotected sex.
She had exhibited suicidal tendencies and was taken to hospital on Christmas Day 1998 having taken an overdose. At that time a judge said all he could offer the child, who has no convictions, was an inappropriate place in a detention centre.
In court yesterday Ms Eithne Leahy, for the child, told the judge a more suitable place had become available and social workers and others involved in the case were recommending that she be moved.
Ms Leahy added that the child had settled in well at the detention centre and her mother felt it would be unsettling for her to move. The girl herself was also not very pleased with the proposed move.
However, counsel said, she was seeking that the child be moved.
Ms Nuala Butler, for the State, supported the move.
In evidence, the girl's mother said her daughter was getting on very well at the detention centre. It took time for her daughter to trust people and she would prefer her to remain where she was.
A representative of the detention centre said it was a reform school which had no brief to provide long-term care for non-offenders. The reason the child was at the centre was because no alternative had been available for her.
The girl had been very convinced she did not want to go to the more suitable centre but was now, following a further visit to that centre last week, quite happy to go and had her bags packed.
Mr Justice Kelly said he fully appreciated the views of the child's mother but believed the proposed move was more appropriate for a child with the kind of difficulties this girl had.
He was impressed by the co-operation between the centres and noted the girl had recently become reconciled to the move, which he believed was more to her long-term benefit than remaining where she was. He directed that she be moved.
