An eight-year-old girl allegedly stabbed multiple times by her mother told gardaí how the accused had stood over her with a knife and said “I am going to kill you”.
The girl’s mother is on trial at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, charged with one count of attempted murder of her daughter at a temporary accommodation centre located in the midwest region, on September 27th, 2022.
On the opening day of the trial on Monday, the accused entered a “not guilty” plea and told the court: “I was out of my mind at that time.”
The jury of seven men and five women have been told the issue of the woman’s mental health at the time would be central to their determining a verdict.
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Prosecuting barrister, senior counsel Lorcan Connolly, said the jury must decide whether or not the accused was “aware” of what she was doing, or whether she was “labouring under a mental disorder” which made her lack the “necessary intent” to kill.
On Tuesday, a recorded DVD interview with the girl carried out by specially trained gardaí was played in court.
The girl, now aged 11, began by telling gardaí her favourite hobbies were performing “gymnastics”, “drawing” and “making slime”.
Outlining the alleged attack, she said: “I woke up, mum had a strange look on her face, she was pacing around looking for something – then she came over to me with a big kitchen knife and started hitting me with it in the bed.”
“I was shouting please stop, I am screaming.
“She started hitting me with the knife in my stomach, chest, my back, my arms, and one caught me in the leg.
“She dragged me from the bed into the bathroom, and I remember clearly, when she was dragging me to the bathroom, I looked back and the bed was covered in blood.
“I remember it being really painful. The most pain I felt was near my stomach, that’s where I lost most of my blood, that’s where she hit me the most.
“When she dragged me into the shower she told me, ‘I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to kill myself – because that is what is best’.”
The girl said she then heard a neighbour knocking on their door “shouting and asking questions and calling the police”.
“My mum grabbed me and pulled me into the bathroom, she continued to hit me with the knife in the bathroom, she said she did not want [people] to take me away from her.
“I didn’t understand this, why someone would take me away; I told her I would find my way back to her if someone took me away,” the girl added.
“It all stopped when my mum stopped hitting me, she just calmed down and sat next to me and started talking to me, and the ambulance came.
“She was talking to me in a really tired and sad voice, I was thinking she was really upset and sad with me.
“I was afraid to say anything at that point, I was quiet. I think my mum was waiting or me to just give up, I didn’t want her to feel threatened and kill me so I stayed silent.”
When asked what she and her mother had done prior to the alleged attack, the girl replied: “I said ‘I love you’, we normally say prayers, so we said our prayers to the saints and to Our Father.”
The court heard the girl, her mother and her father had fled to Ireland in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Mr Connolly said when gardaí had forced their way in the girl was bleeding heavily and had sustained in excess of 70 knife wounds, and that there was a phone charger cable in her hair.
He said the prosecution’s case was the accused had also used a mobile phone charging cable as a ligature on her daughter.
The defence said they would not be cross-examining the girl.
The trial continues before Judge Kerida Naidoo.
