Mother on trial for stabbing daughter, 8, in Co Clare accommodation centre

A garda found an eight-year-old girl with 79 stab wounds, barely breathing, in a Co Clare centre. Her mother faces attempted murder charges.

Garda found girl, 8, bleeding in shower after alleged knife attack by mother

A garda told Dublin's Central Criminal Court on Wednesday how he discovered an eight-year-old girl lying in a shower tray, blood soaking her underwear, after she had allegedly been stabbed multiple times by her own mother, breakingnews.ie reports.

The officer said he and a colleague forced entry into a room at a temporary accommodation centre in County Clare, where they found the mother and daughter in an adjoining en suite bathroom. A bed in the room was covered in blood, and bloody marks led along the wall toward the bathroom door.

The girl's mother — who cannot be named in order to protect her daughter's identity — has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, to one count of attempted murder on 27 September 2022. When entering her plea, the accused added: "I was out of my mind at that time."

The family — the accused, her husband and their daughter — had been living at the midwestern accommodation centre after fleeing Ukraine following the Russian military invasion in March 2022.

"Gasping for breath"

The garda described finding the girl lying next to a discarded steak knife, having sustained multiple stab wounds. Her mother was seated on the bathroom floor, largely unresponsive and staring at her daughter.

Prosecuting senior counsel Lorcan Connolly put it to the garda that the girl's blood was "flowing into the shower drain" and that "her skin had turned a pale white/blue colour" — both of which the garda confirmed. He also confirmed that in his original statement he had described the girl as "gasping for breath."

The garda said he arrested the accused at the scene, then knelt beside the girl, gently lifted her head onto his knee to help keep her airway open, and wrapped her in towels while applying pressure to her most serious wounds. He also noticed a mark on her neck and a phone charging cable tangled in her hair. Evidence heard earlier in the trial, which began last Monday, indicated the cable may have been used as a ligature around the girl's neck.

"I tried to keep her talking," the garda told the court.

He accompanied the girl in an ambulance to University Hospital Limerick (UHL) and later travelled with her when she was transferred to Crumlin Children's Hospital in Dublin.

79 stab wounds

Medical evidence before the court stated that the girl would have died had doctors at UHL not drained blood from a sac around her heart, where it had leaked and was placing pressure on both her lungs and heart. She had sustained a total of 79 stab wounds and subsequently underwent open-heart surgery and further general surgery at Crumlin to repair knife wounds to her chest, back and arms. Staff at UHL involved in her care were offered psychological counselling due to the traumatic nature of her injuries.

Despite her life-threatening condition, the girl survived. She spoke to investigating gardaí two months after the attack.

Girl's account

The court was shown a DVD recording of the girl's interview with gardaí. In it she described her mother standing over her bed on the morning in question and telling her: "I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to kill myself, because that is what's best."

The girl said her mother used a "big kitchen knife," stabbing her while she was still in bed before dragging her into the bathroom and continuing to stab her in her stomach, chest, back and legs. "When she was dragging me to the bathroom, I looked back and the bed was covered in blood," she told gardaí.

The girl was not cross-examined by the defence. She said her mother had told her she feared people were going to take her daughter away, and that it was "best" if they both died.

Resident heard the screams

A fellow resident at the accommodation centre gave evidence that she heard the girl's screams coming from the family's room that morning. She said she had tried to open the door but it was locked, and she phoned the emergency services.

Under cross-examination by the accused's barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, the witness agreed that before the alleged attack the accused had confided in her that she was worried about her own mental state and that of her husband, who the court heard was experiencing mental health difficulties at the time. The accused had reportedly told the witness she wanted to return to Ukraine to seek psychiatric help. She had previously made two unsuccessful attempts to travel back to Ukraine, returning each time to the accommodation centre.

The trial continues before a jury of seven men and five women, presided over by Judge Kerida Naidoo.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)