One daughter was tied to a tree and whipped until she was nearly dead

DETECTIVE Sergeant Kieran McNamara outlined the litany of physical abuse and torture to which the woman subjected her young children.

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 had a good laugh at her as she untied her later. The same girl was hit over the head on another occasion with a hammer and then dipped in a river to clean the wound. Her mother regularly locked a vice grips to her nose, ears or lips for an hour at a time to punish her.

She was regularly beaten with a length of piping with screws attached to one end and her head was shaved 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. On one occasion the mother tied this daughter to a horse and then whipped both the child and the horse so that it would bolt.

In statements given to gardaí following the 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 for the night. 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 from home, 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.