‘Have a nice time in prison’: Girl describes moment her mother stabbed her 70 times as she pleaded ‘don’t do this’

The young girl, who is now in foster care, said that she no longer loves the defendant but doesn’t hate her eithe

The girl described the moment her mother attacked her (Image: Collins Photo Agency)

A girl has described the moment her mother locked their bedroom door before pushing a kitchen knife through her chest in an murder attempt in which the child was stabbed more than 70 times.

In her victim impact statement which was read to the Central Criminal Court by a garda, the young girl, who is now in foster care, said that she no longer loves the defendant but doesn’t hate her either, telling her mother: “I hope you have a nice time in prison.

The court heard that neighbours made a frantic effort during the attack to reach the girl, who was heard telling her mother: “Mum don’t do this, I will die”.

Last January, a jury unanimously found the girl’s mother, a 49-year-old Russian national, guilty of the attempted murder of her then eight-year-old daughter.

In specialists interviews with investigating gardai, the girl described how her mother held a knife over her and told her: “I’m going to kill you and after will kill myself, as that will be best.” She said her mother also told her: “This is what needs to happen, it’s for the best.”

The girl sustained more than 70 stab wounds during the attack by her mother, who also attempted to strangle her.

The defendant, who cannot be named to protect her daughter’s right to anonymity, had denied the charge before the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick. On January 23 last, the trial jury unanimously agreed that the mother was guilty of the girl’s attempted murder.

The trial heard the defendant had told gardaí following her arrest that she was “out of my mind” when she attacked her daughter.

Lorcan Connolly SC, prosecuting, today told Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo that the case was opened on the basis that the woman had attempted to murder her then eight-year-old daughter on September 27, 2022 “with the application of a knife and a cable ligature, causing life changing injuries”.

Detective Garda Cathal Reilly detailed the events of that morning, telling counsel that the defendant along with her Ukrainian husband and daughter had fled the war in Ukraine in March 2022, six months before the attack on the girl.

The detective said the mother and daughter had stayed in a number of temporary accommodation premises before finding shared accommodation, which consisted of a bedroom with an ensuite and a communal kitchen. The mother and daughter were living separately from the child’s father at this point as there was “marital disharmony”.

Mr Connolly said the child was enrolled in a national school and was settling in quite well. However, he said the defendant was suffering from depression, had lost weight and had been taken to hospital.

The detective said the mother had attended at a health centre the day before the incident to say she was depressed and that she didn’t have a GP. A prescription was issued and an appointment was scheduled for medical care on September 29, 2022.

On the morning of September 27, Mr Connolly said the defendant had got up at 7am and gone to the communal kitchen area. He said a Ukrainian woman in the house had given evidence to the trial that she saw the defendant preparing breakfast before returning to her bedroom. Within five minutes, the witness said she heard screams coming from the bedroom.

When the witness went to investigate, she found the defendant’s bedroom door locked. The detective said “desperate” but fruitless efforts were made by her and others to open the door. He said the defendant had claimed “everything was OK” inside the room but wouldn’t open the door.

The witness told gardai that a black-handled knife with a steel blade was missing from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. The witness and her husband heard the eight-year-old girl say: “Mum don’t do this, I will die”. The witness recalled that the defendant had replied to the child “we will die together”.

Mr Connolly said gardai arrived at 8am and an officer saw blood in the bedroom when he looked through a window. He formed the view that “life was endangered” and the bedroom door was kicked in.

The girl, who was wearing only underwear, was found with multiple wounds in the shower area. There was blood flowing into the drain of the shower and the girl’s skin was turning white. Gardai also saw a knife and a phone charging cable.

Det Gda Reilly said the defendant was beside the child staring into space and failed to respond to garda instruction. The mother was removed from the ensuite and handcuffed before her “seriously injured” daughter was rushed by ambulance to hospital.

A doctor noted a rapid heart rate along with 72 wounds, two abrasions and a ligature mark to the child’s neck. The wounds were distributed across the chest and abdomen, as well as the lower and upper limbs. The penetrative wound was between the fifth and sixth rib directly over the child’s heart.

The officer said the child’s condition initially stabilised but then deteriorated due to blood accumulating in the sack around the heart, which had interfered with cardiac function.

He said a doctor gave evidence at the trial that the child’s injuries were consistent with life-threatening complications resulting from injuries with a sharp implement. The child’s condition gradually improved and she was later released from hospital.

Mr Connolly said when the girl was well enough, she gave evidence to specialised garda interviewers, which was played at the trial.

The child had recalled her mother “pacing” that morning and having “some kind of strange look”. The girl described seeing her mother holding a knife over her and the defendant saying “I’m going to kill you and after will kill myself as that will be best”.

The child told gardai she could hear the neighbours shouting and said her mother had “struck” her in the stomach and chest. She said when “the hitting” stopped, her mother had sat down next to her.

The child said her mother told her “this is what needs to happen, it’s for the best”. She said her mother told her she would kill her [the girl] and after that herself. The child said her mother told her she was scared someone was going to take her daughter away.

The barrister said the child described how she had stayed silent as she didn’t want her mother to feel threatened and react.

According to medics, counsel said the mother had overdosed and became unconscious. She was later admitted on an involuntary basis to an acute psychiatric hospital as she was regarded as being at risk of self-harm.

Blood tests showed a number of prescribed medicines for depression and anxiety in the defendant’s system.

When the defendant was interviewed in March, 2023 she told gardai: “It wasn’t planned and I didn’t do it on purpose.” She said she had a long history of anxiety and depression.

The mother said she may have consumed up to 50 tablets and that some were of Russian origin. Gardai had found multiple packets of medication in the accommodation and seized them.

The defendant, who has no previous convictions, told officers she had awoken in an acute anxious state with a fixation that her daughter would not be returned to her. She said she had attempted to choke her daughter but couldn’t carry that out.

The woman said her “sick head was giving her ideas” and she would never have harmed her daughter if she was healthy. She said she couldn’t remember inflicting that many injuries on her daughter and that her child had tried to protect herself from attack.

Mr Connolly said the main battleground in the case was the defendant’s state of mind. He said the defence had sought to rely on a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity and had called consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul O’Connell, whose view was that the defendant fulfilled all the necessary criteria to warrant the special verdict.

The lawyer said the prosecution had called consultant psychiatrist Dr Richard Church, who found the defendant didn’t meet the requisite criteria to warrant the special verdict.

Under cross-examination, the detective agreed with Mark Nicholas SC, defending, that the “only bit of fortune in this tragic case” was that the child had survived.

The officer agreed that the child had very serious injuries to the chest, where blood had started to collect in the pericardial sac.He agreed with Mr Nicholas that prior to the attack, the relationship between the mother and daughter was positive and a teacher had spoken very highly about the mother’s engagement with the child’s school.

“Up to this point there was great love; her mother loved her and would do everything for her,” said counsel.

The lawyer said his client had a difficult psychiatric history before she came to Ireland. Between 2008 and 2019 there were various psychiatric engagements in Russia and Ukraine, where the defendant had been hospitalised five times and diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.

In his submissions, Mr Nicholas said his client loved her daughter up to this point and that a period of despair and lunacy had led to this event.

Mr Justice Naidoo remanded the defendant in custody until May 5, when counsel will make submissions as to how the sentence should be structured.

In her statement, the girl said she awoke that morning to see her mother “looking for something in a drawer”. She said her mother had locked the bedroom door and had stood at it for a second.When the child looked down at her mother’s hand she saw a kitchen knife. “She raised the knife and put it through me…. I got such a big shock I didn’t know what to do; all I could do was scream”.

The victim said she was “so scared” and “through everything I was saying goodbye to this world and thinking about my best friend”. She said her mother lifted her into the ensuite and that she was half in and half out of the shower; “the stabbing didn’t stop”.

She said her mother told her she was sorry, that she didn’t want to do this but she didn’t “want them” to take her daughter away from her. The child said the attack “felt painful” and that her mother looked like she had regretted it.

The girl said as she lay in hospital, she was trying to “put everything right in my mind”. She said the sight of blood now makes her stomach turn and the sight of her scars makes her cry.

The child said she hates thinking about her mother and what she had done had hurt her a lot. “The thought of your own mother doing this to you, a mother that has always loved you and spent all her money on you to see a smile across your face…..I didn’t think that getting stabbed repeatedly would be something I would ever have to experience”.

She said her scars are a permanent reminder of how her mother had hurt her. “Summer time is the time I get asked questions of why I have these stitches on my arms…when I go swimming I can’t wear ordinary swimsuits but ones with long sleeves”.The girl said she has repeated nightmares of her mother trying to kill her. “I hope you have a nice time in prison,” she concluded.

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