Mother (41) apologises for horrific cruelty inflicted on her daughters in violent home
A woman who stayed with her violent partner even after he grabbed one of her two young daughters by the throat and smashed her head on kitchen tiles has apologised for the cruel and volatile environment in which they were raised.
The 41-year-old woman appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing on Wednesday after she pleaded guilty to two counts of cruelty contrary to the Children's Act.
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Defence counsel Elizabeth O'Connell, SC, said that her client was now 'sober and stable' and felt 'devastating shame' for what she had put her girls through in her toxic relationships with men.
The two young women, who are in their early to late teens, previously gave victim impact statements to the court.
The older girl said that she was terrified of one of her mother's partners as she saw him punch his own mother to the point of being near unconscious in the kitchen of their home.
'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.
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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.'
The girl said that the man had turned increasingly violent and she tried to protect 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.
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'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.'
The teenager said that mothers are supposed to protect, nurture and guide their children.
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'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.
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.'
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The teenager said she began to self harm at the age of eight arising out of what she and her sister were enduring 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.'
The girl became emotional as she told Judge Dermot Sheehan that she devised different ways to harm herself in order to drown out the mental pain of the household with actual physical pain.
'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.
"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.
"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.'
Her younger sister had her victim impact statement read in to the record. She said that she learned early on that if her mother wasn't happy 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.
'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.'
The court had heard that the cruelty came to light in 2023 when the older teen rang the emergency services at 11pm one night to say that her mother was intoxicated, armed with a samurai sword and chasing a man around the house. She said that she and her younger sister were terrified.
Judge Sheehan was informed that the girls were malnourished and suffering from poor personal hygiene when gardai arrived at the scene.
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He was also told that the girls had missed large amounts of school. The two daughters now live with relatives and are doing well.
The woman will be sentenced on May 14th next. She was remanded on bail until her next court appearance.
She pleaded guilty to two counts that she ill treated the two girls in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to their health or seriously impact their well being on dates between 2021 and 2023.
The charges relating to the older child refer to a period of three years when she was aged from about 12 to 15 and a shorter period in respect of the younger daughter.
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