‘Cruel’ mother walks free from court

A ‘CRUEL, violent, pathetic and unloving’ mother who subjected four of her children to ‘a horrific catalogue of abuse’ for years has walked free from court.

In the case, the woman pleaded guilty to ill-treating and neglecting her four children over a 30-month period between October 2012 to April 2015.

The children were aged from 15-18, 9-12, 710 and 1-4 during the time of the abuse.

In the evidence before the court, the son who brought the abuse to the attention of the authorities said his mother made his life ‘a living hell’ through years of physical and emotional abuse.

In his victim impact statement, he said: ‘I often thought about killing her as I know it would make life better for my siblings, but that would mean they would have to grow up without their older brother and they didn’t deserve that.’

The teen remembered instances where his mother would force feed his brother by grabbing his nose and jamming food into his mouth. The only daughter recalled her mother hitting her so hard across the face that her palm was imprinted on her cheek. The girl recalled her mother throwing a Vicks jar at her and hitting her below the eye.

Judge Gerald Keys told Ennis Circuit Court yesterday that he couldn’t see any benefit in jailing the 47-year-old woman.

Instead, he imposed four three-year suspended sentences on the Clare mother to run concurrently for the cruelty and neglect of the children.