A High Court judge has directed an urgent hearing of a mother's application aimed at having the Child and Family Agency (CFA) take her 16-year-old daughter into its care.
The mother claims her daughter last August made disclosures alleging she was subject to sexual abuse by a family friend which, the girl then alleged, was continuing.
The mother claims social workers were made aware of those disclosures, and have also been made aware her daughter had gone missing from home more than 16 times from August 2015, including for periods of several days up to Christmas and for some two weeks from December 27th.
It is claimed the man alleged to have sexually abused the girl informed her mother on January 14th that her daughter had attempted suicide and was treated in hospital for wrist lacerations.
The mother says she was distraught by this, particularly at having received the news from the man in question.
The mother claims, after her daughter has refused to return to her care, that she was placed by the CFA’s social work department with a woman who was a former partner of the man alleged to have sexually abused her daughter.
Distress
The mother told her solicitors on January 19th she cannot care for her daughter due to the “extreme nature” of the girl’s distress, and her solicitors had written to the CFA seeking for her daughter to be placed in care under the Child Care Act.
Mr Justice Seamus Noonan said he was directing the CFA be served with notice of the leave application, and returned it for hearing tomorrow.
The mother will also seek an interim order requiring the girl be taken into voluntary care pending the outcome of her case.