A teenager has said she will always view her mother as a stranger who hurt her more than anyone after she subjected her and her younger sister to a childhood of neglect.
The court heard the mother engaged in years of drug taking and invited various men into the family home to abuse drugs with her.
The girl, who cannot be identified, outlined the life she and her sibling were subjected to in a victim impact statement given to Judge Dermot Sheehan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
She said she never expected to tell a courtroom that her mother “destroyed” her life.
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“Mothers are supposed to love their children, unconditionally, protect them, nurture them and guide them. My mother did none of those things.”
She said he mother “betrayed” her and she never felt safe in her childhood home.
“She chose drugs over me – strange men over me and violence over me,“ she said.
The teenager took the stand after her 41-year-old mother pleaded guilty to two counts of ill-treatment of her two children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to their health or seriously affect their wellbeing. The offences are said to have occurred between November 2nd, 2021, and February 26th, 2023.
The woman sobbed in the dock in Anglesea Street Courthouse in Cork as the girl told how she lived in fear of one of her mother’s partners and witnessed him punch his own mother almost unconscious in their kitchen.
“I still hear the sound of it ... 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,” she said.
She recalled how he almost killed her when she intervened to try to protect her younger sister from him.
“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’.”
The girl said she began self-harming at eight years of age and later attempted suicide.
She said no amount of time can remove the damage caused by her mother.
Judge Sheehan agreed to adjourn the sentencing until April 30th after defence senior counsel, Elizabeth O’Connell, said her client has been sober for several months. Ms O’Connell said she believed that a probation report on her client would be of assistance to the court when it came to sentencing.
