AN ADDICT repeatedly hit a nine-month-old baby because it started crying while she was coming down from heroin in the bathrooms of a chipper, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has heard.
The 25-year-old woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, initially told gardaí she could not remember how the child suffered its injuries because she was “stoned out of it”.
She later admitted she “hit her a few slaps” adding that “babies bruise easily.”
The baby spent a week in hospital being treated for bruising and haemorrhages across her face and body and a haemorrhage to her eye.
The court heard she is now in a stable foster home and is a happy and healthy child.
The child’s mother left her in the woman’s care for several days even though the last time she cared for a child “didn’t work out too well.” The mother was also aware the woman was a chronic heroin addict.
The woman pleaded guilty to assaulting and causing unnecessary suffering to a child in her care between May 1st, 2007 and May 4th, 2007. The court heard the woman evaded arrest for nearly two years after the assault.
Judge Katherine Delahunt adjourned finalisation of sentence until next March and denied an application to release the woman on bail.
A detective sergeant told prosecuting counsel Ronan Kennedy that the woman arrived at a drug treatment centre to pick up her methadone with the baby in her arms. A social worker there noticed bruising to the baby’s face.
When she was questioned she said he had not noticed the injuries. She claimed she had been minding the child for a few hours while the mother went shopping however, it was later established that the child had been with her for three or four days.