Woman accused of murdering her mother on Christmas Eve

A Lithuanian woman has gone on trial accused of murdering her mother in their Dublin home on Christmas Eve 2010.

Greta Dudko (aged 35) of Station Court Hall, Clonsilla has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Anna Butautiene (aged 56) at that address on December 24, 2010.

The Central Criminal Court has heard the plea was not acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The court heard Ms Dudko is a nurse who worked in the New Park Care Centre nursing home in The Ward in North Dublin.

In her opening speech, Ms Pauline Walley SC prosecuting told the jury the case related to events on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day during the winter of the big snow in 2010.

She said Ms Dudko who was working as a nurse had difficulties in her life with her marriage and with alcohol and had been suspended from her job shortly before the killing.

Ms Walley said the accused and her husband had separated two weeks before the killing and she and her child left their home to live in Clonsilla with her mother.

Earlier on December 24, while the accused’s child was in her husband’s house in Castleknock, Ms Butautiene came back to the apartment and a row developed.

Ms Walley said Ms Butautiene suffered injuries in that row and the pathologist will say the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The accused's husband came back on December 25 and did not see Ms Butautiene but Ms Dudko did not tell him about the row, the court heard.

Ms Butautiene was in bed and Ms Walley told the court the prosecution believes she was dead at that stage.

Ms Dudko later told her husband about the difficulties she had in work and about the row, the court heard.

Ms Walley said the accused’s husband and his housemate went with Ms Dudko back to her house and found her mother lying dead in her bed.

Ms Dudko’s husband called the gardai and Ms Walley said the jury would hear that she asked him not to call them.

When gardai cautioned Ms Dudko she said “I was drunk, my mum, she started hitting me with something”.

The court heard the accused said her mother did not wake up after that and when asked if she used a weapon she said: “No, I didn’t, just pushed her to the wall. She tried to kill me”.

Ms Dudko told gardai her mother was angry with her that her son was at his father’s house and a row broke out, the court heard.

The court heard the accused said she pushed her mother against the wall twice and she fell on to the bed.

Ms Walley said when gardaí pressed Ms Dudko she said that after she pushed her mother she got a bottle and hit her with it twice around the face and head.

Ms Walley told the jury that the pathologist said there were between five and eight blows around the head.

She said most of what the prosecution knows about that night comes from Ms Dudko and that there was nobody else in the apartment.

Detective Sergeant Paul Curran who took photos of the scene said burnt remnants of a passport bearing the name Anna Butautiene were found in the bin and he said he took a picture of a bloodstained Irish Knights liqueur bottle.

The trial continues before a jury of seven men and five women with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan presiding.