A mother who beat her young daughter because she kissed a boy in the schoolyard will be sentenced in April by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The Nigerian woman (37), who lives in north Dublin and cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to her then fiveyear-old daughter on a date between October 17th and 20th, 2003.
Garda Cillian McGlynn told , Caroline Cummins prosecuting, that when the child arrived at school on a Monday morning with a bad black eye, her teacher contacted gardaí.
The teacher told gardaí she had told the mother on the previous Friday that her daughter had played "kiss chase" in the playground. The mother became very upset and thought her daughter was out of control.
At school the child gave different accounts of how she got the black eye. The following day she showed her teacher a bite mark on her shoulder and bruises on her upper arms. She said her mother had beaten her with a stick and hit her head off a table, hurting her eye. The child's mother told gardaí she had beaten the girl with a wooden spoon for some 30 seconds.
The child was placed under an emergency care order and now lives with foster parents from Monday to Friday and with her mother at weekends.
A report by social services was handed into court which indicated there were no child protection concerns for the girl at the moment. It said the mother's initial anger was directed towards her daughter's teacher but she later took full responsibility for her actions.
The report revealed that the defendant was ashamed of her behaviour and the girl had no fear of her mother.
Judge Desmond Hogan adjourned sentence to April 5th, 2006, to allow a Probation and Welfare Service report to be compiled.
He said the woman had reacted in a "quite inappropriate" way but was learning to deal with her own inadequacies and had the potential to be a very good mother.