‘She wasn’t a mother, she was an evil bitch’
The woman, who cannot be named in order 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 from May 2002 to June 2009.
The charges relate to two of the woman’s sons and six of her daughters.
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.”
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.
A Garda Sergeant said she had complete control over the family’s finances and channelled all money received for the children into Post Office and Credit Union accounts for herself, while depriving her children of food and clothing.
Reports from care workers handed into court stated 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. The mother would not allow her daughters as they got older to draw the dole in case they would have money to run away from home.
Bernard Madden, defending, said the HSE had knowledge of the family since 2000. He said the mother had a very serious alcohol addiction for many years.
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.
Victim impact statements from some of the children showed that they are all angry and traumatised at being separated from each other. All are now living in various care and foster homes and are clearly unhappy.
Imposing sentence, Judge Raymond Groarke said it was incredible that the abuse could go on for so many years in a community with little or no intervention. He said what was described by gardaí was a life given over to actions of neglect, abuse and torture of the children.
He noted the children were treated like slaves by their mother.
“What is it that can make a mother behave as this lady behaved? Was it because she was sexually abused as a child, which I doubt is not the case, or was it because she was an alcoholic from an early age? That might give some insight into the situation but this lady has little if any notion of remorse for what she has done.”
