Mother goes on trial facing 44 counts of child abuse

A mother has gone on trial charged with cruelty and neglect of eight of her children over a six-year period.

The woman, aged 39, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the children, now aged between 5 and 19, has pleaded not guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court to 44 charges of child cruelty.

The charges relate to wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, or abandoning the children, or causing or allowing the children to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, or abandoned, in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to the children’s health or seriously affect their wellbeing.