No jail for heroin addict mum guilty of child neglect

A chronic heroin addict whose 15-month-old son was found with cuts, bruises and burns to his body while lying in a bedroom that had "evidence of drug use" has been given a suspended sentence.

The 40-year-old woman, who is also the mother of six other children and cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to wilfully neglecting the child on December 16, 2005.

The toddler was the youngest of the family and was found with bruises of varying ages on his body, burns on his fingertips and scalp, cuts to his lips and palms and a swollen knee joint.

Gardaí and Health Board workers arrived at the house in Dublin to find it in disarray with dirty nappies lying in the hallway and clothes strewn about.

The baby was found on a bed in a sodden nappy with blood around his nose and mouth. He was listless and unresponsive and was lying next to a burnt spoon with empty beer cans thrown on the floor.

Judge Desmond Hogan said his initial reaction on hearing the evidence in the case last July had been to immediately impose a custodial sentence.

He said he was glad he had not because the woman had used the intervening time to begin to address her drug addiction and an updated report showed that the children, who are in long term foster care, were progressing well "educationally, physically and mentally."

Judge Hogan said that while the welfare of the children was of "paramount importance" to the court he also had to take into account that this offence arose from chronic drug addiction and that the woman's efforts to get herself "back on the straight and narrow" would benefit her children.

Judge Hogan imposed a two-year sentence which he suspended for four years on strict conditions. He gave liberty to the Gardaí and The Probation Service to re-enter the case should the woman breech the conditions.

Garda Sinead Connolly told prosecuting counsel, Ms Caroline Biggs BL, that the woman said she had left the house four weeks previously following "an aggressive incident" with a man who was also living there.

She refused to return to the house until he moved out and although she had visited regularly she spent most nights either sleeping in a car or in a friend's mother's house.

She told gardaí that she was told by the other children that the toddler had fallen down the stairs and that the burns had probably been caused by him touching a hot radiator. She accepted that she did not bring him to hospital as she should have done when she saw the extent of his injuries.

A social welfare report said that the little boy is now progressing well under the care of his foster mother.

When he first went into care he took food from the bin, although there was some prepared for him already, would wake up screaming during the night, was clingy and had behavioural difficulties.

His position had improved since and he gets on well with his foster mother. He also enjoys supervised fortnightly visits with his mother.

Judge Hogan said "a picture is worth a thousands words" having viewed what he described as "harrowing" photographs of the boy's injuries.

"The serious neglect of an infant is a mother's dereliction of her duty to her child. She was a chronic drug addict who was living in an abusive and violent relationship," Judge Hogan said and added that he didn't believe she really knew what was going on at all.

Mr William Galvin BL, defending, said his client was simply unable to cope with minding six children "in the context of a difficult relationship while she was in the throes of a drug addiction".

"She was not able to see what was in front of her face," Mr Galvin submitted.

He said she has since started to deal with her drug addiction because she knew she needed to do this in order to have more access to her children.

Gda Connolly told Ms Biggs that the man who answered the door to gardaí that day was incoherent and his speech was slurred.

The woman accepted she was in a relationship with this man and that he abused drugs but she insisted that he never took drugs in front of the children.

Gda Connolly agreed with Mr Galvin that the woman was "a very different woman to the one she was in December 2005" and accepted that she had been impressed by her progress.

She further agreed that the father of the younger two children had not been allowed supervised access to them.