Accused ‘out of her mind’ stabbing and strangling child, who now lives in foster care and shuns parent
A woman who claimed she was “out of her mind” when she tried to murder her daughter, who was strangled with a phone cable and stabbed more than 70 times, has been jailed for nine years. Sentencing the defendant at the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Judge Kerida Naidoo said a deterioration in the 49-year-old’s mental health in 2022 had significantly contributed to her wrongdoing. He said a victim-impact statement from her daughter, who was eight at the time of the “sustained attack”, made clear how physically agonising the episode was for her. He said the girl’s scars were healing, but were still a permanent reminder of the incident. The judge said the woman developed an irrational belief before the attack that her daughter would be taken from her. There was no doubt, he said, that they had a good relationship, and she was a good parent to her child before her mental health deteriorated. In the statement, read to the court in April by a garda, the girl, now living in foster care, described the moment her mother locked their bedroom door and pushed a kitchen knife through her chest. She said she no longer loves the defendant, but does not hate her and instead has no feelings towards her. “I hope you have a nice time in prison,” she told her mother. The trial heard that neighbours made frantic efforts during the attack to reach the girl, who was heard saying: “Mum, don’t do this, I will die.” A jury in January unanimously found the accused, a Russian national, guilty of her daughter’s attempted murder. The defendant, who cannot be named to protect her daughter’s right to anonymity, had denied the charge before the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick. During specialist Garda interviews, the girl described how her mother held a knife over her and said: “I’m going to kill you and after will kill myself, as that will be best.” The trial heard the defendant told gardaí following her arrest that she was “out of my mind” when she attacked the child. Prosecution counsel Lorcan Connolly previously told Naidoo the case was opened on the basis that the woman attempted to murder her then eight-year-old daughter on September 27th, 2022, “with the application of a knife and a cable ligature, causing life-changing injuries”. The judge on Monday said the jury’s verdict meant the defendant had done the relevant acts with the intent to kill her daughter. He said two consultant doctors found that a wound to the child’s pericardial sac would have been fatal if not treated. He said the court had to establish how the defendant’s culpability was diminished by her mental health problems. He said the fact that the defendant was the child’s mother added to the impact of the offending. “Against that, the large number of less serious wounds points to hesitation on the part of the defendant to inflict serious injuries,” he added. The judge said there was no evidence of premeditation or of a motive unrelated to the defendant’s mental state for the attack. He set the headline sentence at 18½ years without regard to the woman’s mental condition. He said the jury had rejected the insanity defence, but he felt the evidence regarding her mental state was important to the sentencing process. The judge said the defendant had four admissions to hospital between 2009 and 2017, where she received a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder. He said the woman maintained her mental health issues began to re-emerge in September 2022, shortly before the attack. The judge said the defendant was marginally conscious when found by gardaí slumped on the ground with blood on her clothing after the attack. He said the woman attempted suicide and was not deemed medically fit to be interviewed by gardaí until some six months after the incident. The judge said the woman’s mental health significantly contributed to her wrongdoing. Taking this into account, he reduced the headline sentence to 12 years. He said the defendant co-operated during the Garda investigation and made admissions which were of material assistance to the inquiry. He also took the absence of previous convictions into account and that she was a loving parent before the incident. He suspended the final three years for a period of three years, resulting in a custodial sentence of nine years backdated to March 2023, when the woman went into custody.
