Woman punished boy with electric dog collar
Toddler shocked with pet training device in catalogue of cruelty
A FORMER soldier who used a dog training collar to inflict electric shocks on a toddler during a catalogue of cruelty was behind bars last night.
Lanna Monaghan, who is pregnant, saw the device being used and told a pet owner: ‘If it works on a dog it will work on kids.’
The High Court in Edinburgh heard yesterday that former soldier Monaghan, 34, also kicked and bit the child, hit him so hard with a wooden spoon that it broke, and subjected him to cold showers.
Monaghan admitted to police that she had a temper and could ‘zone out’ and go ‘out of control’.
After seeing pictures of the boy’s injuries, judge Lady Rae asked if those on his neck were consistent with what appeared to be electrodes on the collar.
On being told that they were, she said: ‘So it must have been applied on a number of occasions.’
Lady Rae told a weeping Monaghan: ‘This is an appalling catalogue of charges of physical cruelty – I think that is the only way to describe it – to a toddler.’
She refused a request to continue bail and called for background reports ahead of sentencing.
The judge added: ‘Realistically, it would be very difficult to avoid custody in a case such as this. This was a toddler, a defenceless child.’ Monaghan, formerly of Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, admitted five charges of assaulting the boy, who does not live with her, at addresses in the Highlands in 2014 and 2015.
She admitted repeatedly fixing a dog collar with an electric shock device attached around his neck and inflicting shocks on him in July last year. The private hire car company employee also admitted forcibly placing him in a shower and turning it on and off while kicking the boy on the body.
Monaghan, who served in the Army for nine years, also admitted biting him on the ear and striking him with a wooden spoon.
The abuse ended when a woman contacted police over her concerns for the boy, who was then aged three. The woman kept dogs and had an electronic training collar which Monaghan had seen.
Advocate depute Jane Farquharson said: ‘It works by a remote control (and) delivers an electric shock through the collar.’
Monaghan later revealed to the woman in a phone call that she had shouted to the child: ‘Do you want me to go and get the f ****** buzzer?’ The woman realised that Monaghan must have bought a dog collar similar to the one she had. Miss Farquharson said that ‘a number of non-accidental injuries’ were found when the boy was examined at hospital.
Monaghan admitted to a psychiatric nurse that she had ‘anger issues’, the court was told.
She also told police: ‘I’m truly sorry for what happened, I can’t believe it happened.’ She claimed the child ‘pushes my buttons, spitting on me, peeing on the floor and being sick on the floor’.
The prosecutor said: ‘She did not appear to recognise the possibility that the child was reacting involuntarily and through fear.’
Monaghan initially denied using the collar on the boy but later admitted to police that she had given him three shocks in succession because he had refused to swallow his food.
Defence counsel Duncan McPhie asked for Monaghan’s bail to be continued as she was effectively a first offender. He added: ‘The main reason for continuing bail is she is pregnant.’ But Lady Rae remanded her in custody ahead of a further hearing at the High Court in Glasgow in July.
‘Admitted to anger issues’