Jury retires to consider verdict in trial of mother accused of stabbing daughter over 70 times

A JURY has retired in the trial of a woman accused of the attempted murder of her eight year old daughter, in Co Clare, four years ago.

The girl sustained more than 70 stab wounds during the alleged attack by her mother, the jury heard.

The woman also attempted to strangle her daughter, it was heard.

The woman has denied a single count of attempted murder before the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick.

The trial heard the accused told gardai, following her arrest, that she was “out of my mind” at the time her daughter sustained her injuries.

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The girl underwent life-saving treatment at University Hospital Limerick and Crumlin Children’s Hospital, Dublin.

A witness called by the prosecution, UK consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Richard Church, gave evidence last week that, in his opinion, the accused could not rely on a defence that she was insane at the time.

Dr Church said that, while he believed the accused was aware of what she was doing, he said he did not believe that the accused had not known that what she was doing was wrong at the time.

Dr Church said he took “great care” in considering a defence of “insanity”, but, he said he was “not satisfied” that the accused could rely on it.

The witness allegedly concealed the knife used in the attack and had locked the door to the room where the alleged attack occurred — these were, Dr Church said, “behaviours indicating that she knew that what she was about to do was wrong”.

The court heard the accused had previously accessed psychiatric hospital services in her native Russia where she was diagnosed there with “bipolar active disorder”.

In March 2022, six months prior to the attack on the girl, the accused and her daughter fled the war in Ukraine to Ireland and they stayed in a number of temporary accommodation premises.

Dr Church said his view was, that at the time of the attack on the girl, the accused was suffering with an “adjustment disorder in addition to a personality disorder”, which “manifested in a severe response to her circumstances”.

He said he believed the accused was suffering from a number of stresses in her life at the time; that she had poor coping skills, and that she suffered emotional outbursts.

Following her arrest, the accused told gardai she stabbed her daughter multiple times with a kitchen knife and tried to strangle her.

She said that she had been having suicidal thoughts at the time.

The accused said she had become paranoid that others thought she was a poor mother and that Tusla, the child and family agency, would come and take her daughter from her.

She said she had contemplated means of suicide and killing her daughter.

During interviews with gardai the accused confirmed that a knife gardaí showed to her, which was seized from the scene, was the knife she said she used in the attack.

“Chaos took over my mind,” the accused told Gardaí.

Defence witness, Dr Paul O’Connell, a consultant forensic psychiatrist Central Mental Hospital, told the court that, in his opinion, the accused was in the throes of a mental disorder at the time and that, in his opinion, the accused was not aware at the time that what she was doing was wrong.

The accused’s barrister, senior counsel, Mark Nicholas, told the jury that if it accepted the evidence of Dr O’Connell, they could consider that the accused was not guilty by reason of insanity.