A woman who continued to live with her abusive partner even after he grabbed one of her daughters by the throat and smashed her head onto kitchen tiles has expressed remorse for the harmful and unstable environment in which her children were raised, reports The Mirror.
The 41-year-old mother appeared at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today for sentencing after admitting to two charges of child cruelty under the Children’s Act.
Her barrister, Elizabeth O’Connell SC, told the court that her client is now “sober and stable” and feels “devastating shame” over the suffering she caused her daughters through her destructive relationships with men, reports The Mirror.
Both daughters, now in their teens, had previously provided the court with victim impact statements.
The older of the two spoke about her fear of one of her mother’s partners, recalling how she witnessed him assault his own mother so severely that she was nearly unconscious.
“I watched him beat his own mother in my house. I watched him slam his fists into her face over and over until she was barely conscious,” reports The Mirror.
“I still hear the sound of it, you know, the sound of pigs in a slaughterhouse, exactly like that, frantic, pained squealing and groans. It will never leave my mind. I still see the blood. I still remember feeling so small and helpless because I knew there was nothing that I could do to stop it. And then he turned his violence on me,” reports The Mirror.
She recounted how the man became increasingly violent and how she tried to shield her younger sister from him.
“The night he choked me to the ground, I didn’t provoke him. I wasn’t even fighting him. I was just trying to protect my little sister. That’s what I always did, protect her and loved her because no one else would – I stepped between my sister and him when he had a violent outburst. Suddenly his hands were around my throat, squeezing in such a violent manner, I fell back, my head smashing on her kitchen tiles, squeezing, cutting off air. I remember the pressure, the dizziness, the moment when I thought, ‘This is it, this is how I’m going to die.’ And my mother still let him back in. She swore to me he was gone. She looked me in the eyes and promised but she chose him over us. It wasn’t just [man’s name]. It was everything. The way she made me feel like I was the problem, like I was the one ruining her life when all I ever wanted was to be loved,” reports The Mirror.
The girl said that a mother’s role is to protect and nurture her children, but her own mother failed her.
“My mother did none of those things. She picked and chose when I deserved any crumb of that treatment. Instead, she was the reason I lived in constant fear. She was the reason I spent my entire childhood walking on eggshells, waiting for the next outburst or terrible thing to happen. She chose drugs over me, strange men over me and violence over me. She let her random hook-ups and one-week relationships into the house like they had a right to be there, like I was just some background noise in her life. She never once thought about me,” reports The Mirror.
“I don’t think people understand what it’s like to grow up in a house where you never feel safe. You don’t know if the person who supposedly loves you will be kind one minute or cruel the next. My mother didn’t just fail me. She betrayed me in ways no child should ever have to experience,” reports The Mirror.
The teenager said she began to self-harm when she was eight years old due to the trauma she and her sister experienced at home.
“I still have scars all over my body. Some have faded, but most haven’t. I see them every day – thin, pale reminders of the past. Each slice a screaming match, a slammed door and a night spent choking in my own silence. They are more than scars. They are imprints of when I couldn’t hold the pain inside. My skin remembers what my mind tries to forget, no amount of therapy can erase them, no amount of time can take them away, the damage she did,” reports The Mirror.
She became emotional as she told Judge Dermot Sheehan how she resorted to different forms of self-harm to escape the emotional pain caused by the abusive environment.
“I was so desperate for any kind of relief… My skin remembers what my mind tries to forget. No amount of therapy can erase them. No amount of time can take away the damage she did. Even now, even though I am out of that house. I’m still living with the effects of what she did to me. I can’t be around strange men without feeling my body tense up. I flinch when people raise their voices. Just hearing people argue is enough to send me spiralling into a panic. It doesn’t matter if I know I’m safe, my brain doesn’t believe it. My brain is still stuck in that house, still waiting for the next explosion, still bracing for the next time someone will hurt me,” reports The Mirror.
“I had countless suicide notes hidden around my room, some blaming my mom, others blaming myself. Pages filled with words I never said out loud, thoughts too heavy for a child to carry. Each one felt like a goodbye I was getting closer to saying. But the moment I got out of the house I got better. I started feeling like a person again instead of a shell of one. You are not my mammy. That word belongs to someone who puts their child before themselves. You were never that for me. You are just my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and nothing more. Because being a mother isn’t about blood. It’s about what you do, how you show up. And you never did,” reports The Mirror.
“And until the day comes when you do stop running from what you’ve done, when you face the damage you caused and actually work to change, that’s all you’ll ever be to me. Not my mammy, not my family, just a stranger who hurt me more than anyone ever could,” reports The Mirror.
The younger daughter had her statement read out in court. She described how she quickly realised that if her mother was in a bad mood, she wasn’t “allowed to be happy.”
“One day, she’d tell me how much she loved me, and the next day, she’d say things that were the complete opposite. Because of this, I’ve always had a hard time trusting people who are kind to me. Honestly, I don’t talk about it much, but I believe my life could have been so much better if alcohol and other substances weren’t brought into our home. I think my mom could have been a better mom, but no matter how much I begged, she had no intention of stopping,” reports The Mirror.
“All I really want is for my mom to get help — the kind of real help she needs. I want her to rehabilitate and become the person I know she could’ve been,” reports The Mirror.
The court heard the abuse came to public attention in 2023 when the older girl called emergency services at 11pm, reporting that her intoxicated mother was wielding a samurai sword and chasing a man inside the house. Both girls were frightened.
Judge Sheehan was told that when gardaí arrived, the girls were malnourished and poorly groomed, reports The Mirror.
It was also revealed that the sisters had missed substantial time from school. They are now living with family members and are said to be thriving.
The mother will be sentenced on May 14. She has been granted bail until her next court appearance, reports The Mirror.
She admitted to two charges of mistreating the girls in a way that was likely to cause them unnecessary suffering, harm their health, or severely affect their wellbeing between 2021 and 2023.
The charges against the older daughter span a period of about three years when she was aged 12 to 15, while the offences concerning the younger child cover a shorter timeframe, reports The Mirror.
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