Heroin addict remanded on bail in 'neglect' case
A chronic heroin addict whose 15-month-old son was found with cuts, bruises and burns to his body while lying in a bedroom that had "evidence of drug use" has been remanded on bail pending sentence.
The 40-year-old woman is also the mother of six other children and cannot be named for legal reasons.
The toddler was the youngest of the family and was found with bruises of varying ages on his body, burns on his fingertips and scalp, cuts to his lips and palms and a swollen knee joint.
Gardaí and Health Board workers arrived at the house in Dublin to find it in disarray with dirty nappies lying in the hallway and clothes strewn about.
The baby was found on a bed in a sodden nappy with blood around his nose and mouth. He was listless and unresponsive and was lying next to a burnt spoon with empty beer cans thrown on the floor.
She pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to wilfully neglecting the child on December 16, 2005.
Judge Desmond Hogan heard the woman has supervised access every fortnight to six of her children who are now in foster care.
A social welfare report said that the little boy is now progressing well under the care of his foster mother.
When he first went into care he took food from the bin, although there was some prepared for him already, would wake up screaming during the night, was clingy and had behavioural difficulties.
His position had improved since and he gets on well with his foster mother. He also enjoys the fortnightly visits with his mother.
Judge Hogan said "a picture is worth a thousands words" having viewed what he described as "harrowing" photographs of the boy's injuries.
"My instant emotive reaction was to impose a custodial sentence immediately," he said but added that there were a number of factors that needed to be considered and adjourned the case for reports to see how all six children are doing.
He also ordered a probation report in relation to how their mother is dealing with her drug addiction.
"The serious neglect of an infant is a mother's dereliction of her duty to her child. She was a chronic drug addict who was living in an abusive and violent relationship," Judge Hogan said and added that he didn't believe she really knew what was going on at all.
Garda Sinead Connolly told prosecuting counsel, Ms Caroline Biggs BL, that the woman said she had left the house four weeks previously following "an aggressive incident" with a man who was also living there.
She refused to return to the house until he moved out and although she had visited regularly she spent most nights either sleeping in a car or in a friend's mother's house.
She told gardaí that she was told by the other children that the toddler had fallen down the stairs and that the burns had probably been caused by him touching a hot radiator. She accepted that she did not bring him to hospital as she should have done when she saw the extent of his injuries.
Mr William Galvin BL, defending, said his client was simply unable to cope with minding six children "in the context of a difficult relationship while she was in the throes of a drug addiction".
"She was not able to see what was in front of her face," Mr Galvin submitted.
He said she has since started to deal with her drug addiction because she knew she needed to do this in order to have more access to her children.
Garda Connolly told Ms Biggs that the man who answered the door to gardai that day was incoherent and his speech was slurred.
The woman accepted she was in a relationship with this man and that he abused drugs but she insisted that he never took drugs in front of the children.
Garda Connolly agreed with Mr Galvin that the woman was "a very different woman to the one she was in December 2005" and accepted that she had been impressed by her progress.
She further agreed that the father of the younger two children had not been allowed supervised access to them.
