AN 18-MONTH prison sentence given to a woman found guilty of neglecting her five children “to the point of cruelty” has been labelled too lenient by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The 34-year-old woman, who cannot be named to protect her children’s identity, was sentenced to four years by Judge Martin Nolan at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, with the final 2½ years suspended.
Caroline O’Sullivan, the director of services for the ISPCC, said the sentence did not reflect the severity of the crime “and the total unacceptability of child abuse”.
The woman’s 44-year-old husband is already serving sentences for neglect, assault and a rape offence. Judge Nolan said it was a “particularly sad matter”, and the children had been “neglected to the point of cruelty”. They were aged between four and 11 when they were taken into care,
They were “ill-fed, ill-clothed and ill-taken care of” and any normal person would have recognised that, he said. He said he was taking into account the mother’s dysfunctional upbringing, her inability to cope with her circumstances and her guilty plea. However, he said she had disregarded her “sacred duty” to protect her children and had done so in “the most flagrant manner”.
The Health Service Executive said its national director of children and families, Gordon Jeyes, would refer this case to the national review panel, which investigates serious incidents involving child protection.
He “will consider the facts of this case further and will decide the scope of an independent investigation to cover all contacts with the family,” a HSE spokeswoman said.
“Clearly the investigation will have to cover both periods: when the family became known to the health authorities after 2007 and also the period from 2001 to 2007, when the family arrived in this country.”
The children had suffered for so long because the parents had deliberately avoided coming to the attention of the authorities by moving around the State and using aliases, Ms O’Sullivan said. She praised the authorities for acting swiftly to protect the children once they became aware of the risk.
