‘Worst mother in the world’ due to be released

The woman who labelled herself “the worst mother in the world” is due to be released from prison within weeks.

The 45-year-old who subjected her children to a regime of horrific abuse and deprivation at their home in Roscommon, will be freed before the end of April. She presided over years of cruelty and neglect at her home which has come to be known as “the Roscommon House of Horrors”.

An alcoholic, she was sentenced in January 2009 to seven years after pleading guilty to 10 charges, including two of incest, two of sexual abuse and six of neglect and wilful ill-treatment and neglect of the children between 1998 and 2004.

She described herself as the “worst mother in the world” after Roscommon Circuit Court heard a harrowing catalogue of abuse, including forcing her 13-year-old son to have sex with her.

She was the first woman in Irish legal history to be convicted of incest and the first to be registered as a sex offender. Her husband was later jailed for 12-and-a-half years for the rape and sexual assault of one of his sons. The children were aged between six and 15 when the offences took place.

Shocking victim impact statements from the youngsters were read to the court, detailing how they were not fed properly, their clothes were not washed and the range which heated the home was only lit once a month.

Their mother, who suffered from depression and asthma and has a drinking problem, would routinely go to a pub in the evening at around 6pm, leaving the children alone, only returning home when she was drunk in the early hours of the morning, one of her sons said.

He explained how he and a brother cared for the younger children and their mother would come home at between 3am and 4am, very drunk and arguing.

His sister, now 12, said the home was scary when her mother was drunk, she was bullied at school and children called her smelly.

When gardaí arrested the woman, she admitted the offences and said she was sorry. “My kids were sexually abused, not washed and not fed — I am the worst mother in the world and I don’t deserve to get my children back.”

The HSE later issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology to the six children.

The mother has been serving her term at the Dochas Centre, the women’s section at Mountjoy Prison. She will have served a total of five years and three months by the time of her release, having received standard remission of one-quarter of her term for good behaviour.