A 47-YEAR-OLD mother has been sentenced to 24 years in prison with the final 16 years suspended for the cruelty and neglect of eight of her children over a seven-year period.
The woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the children, pleaded guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court to eight sample charges of assaulting, ill-treating and neglecting the children in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to their health at various locations around the country from May, 2002, to June, 2009.
The charges relate to two of the woman’s sons and six of her daughters.
Det Sgt Kieran McNamara outlined the litany of physical abuse and torture that the woman subjected her young children to.
In 2002, she stood by as her 14-year-old daughter was stabbed through the arm and then helped stitch the wound at home with an ordinary needle and thread so that the girl, who was regularly beaten and tortured along with her seven siblings, could not make a complaint to the authorities.
The mother refused to take her daughter to a doctor when the wound and stitches became infected and burst open days later.
A doctor who examined the girl’s right arm in 2009, when some of the children were taken into care, “cringed” at the thought that the child was stitched without anaesthetic, Sgt McNamara said.
The mother was present when the same girl was tied to a tree and whipped until she was nearly dead. The mother laughed at her as she untied her later. Her mother regularly locked a vice grips to her nose, ears or lips for an hour at a time to punish her.
The girl was regularly beaten with a length of piping with screws attached to one end and her head was shaven by her mother to stop her running away from home. Her mother often bit her on the face and hit her over the head with anything she could get her hands on — bottles, hammers, sticks and blocks.
In statements given to gardaí following their mother’s arrest on Christmas Eve, 2009, the other children outlined how their mother regularly attached vice grips to their noses, ears and lips to punish them. One daughter said her mother would use a vice grips to grab her ear and pull and twist it until it bled.
Another daughter told gardaí how their mother would lock them all in a confined space with no food and give them a wet sheet to sleep on. One daughter recalled how their mother often went away for a week at a time and they would have to beg food from neighbours.
Three of the siblings recalled that when an older brother and sister managed to run away, they were subjected to terrible beatings with a whip from their mother.
She beat one of her sons very badly with whips and sticks in a bid to make him look disabled so that she could claim extra social welfare benefits for him.
The second youngest daughter who was born with physical disabilities was found strapped into a filthy buggy by a social worker in 2002. Her face was bruised and the room in which she was in was filthy and cold and there were nappies strewn everywhere.
The social worker advised the mother to bring the child, who had breathing difficulties, for treatment to a local hospital but she never did so.
One of the older sisters later told gardaí she often saw the young child bleeding from her private parts and she would give her a bath but the bleeding never stopped. She said she found blood-soaked nappies piled in a press and when she was six years old and potty-trained her mother pretended she was disabled to claim more money.
In victim impact statements read to the court, one daughter said of her mother: “She was not a mother to me. She was an evil bitch.” Despite pleading guilty, the mother has consistently denied neglecting or abusing her children. She told gardaí she was never influenced by her husband and was not afraid of him.
Reports from care workers said all of the children were infested with head lice when taken into care. They had very little clothing, wore no underwear and didn’t know how to wear underwear when given some by carers.
They ate continually when first taken into care and didn’t know the names of basic fruit and vegetables. Most of them could not read or write as their mother had often refused to send them to school.
Senior counsel Bernard Madden, defending, said the Health Service Executive had knowledge of the family since 2000. He said the mother had a very serious alcohol addiction for many years.
Sgt McNamara confirmed the woman drank regularly and would buy food in her local shop but would then refuse to feed the children when she was drunk.
Mr Madden confirmed his client had no psychiatric or psychological problems but a forensic psychologist had found she had been sexually abused when 13. The woman denied this.