{"id":284537,"date":"2026-01-14T20:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/284537\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:48:07","slug":"garda-found-eight-year-old-gasping-for-breath-after-alleged-knife-attack-by-mother-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/284537\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda found eight-year-old \u2018gasping for breath\u2019 after alleged knife attack by mother, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A garda<\/a> told a court today how he found an eight-year old girl bleeding and \u201cgasping for breath\u201d after her mother allegedly attacked her with a large knife.<\/p>\n

The garda said he and a colleague forced their way into a room at a temporary accommodation centre and found the mother and daughter in an adjoining bathroom.<\/p>\n

The garda said a bed in the room was covered in blood and there were blood marks on a wall leading to the en suite.<\/p>\n

The girl\u2019s mother, who cannot be named to protect her daughter\u2019s identity, has pleaded \u201cnot guilty\u201d at her trial at the Central Criminal Court<\/a>, Limerick<\/a>, to one count of attempted murder on September 27th, 2022.<\/p>\n

The accused, her husband and daughter had been residing in the accommodation premises after fleeing Ukraine in March 2022 due to Russia\u2019s invasion. <\/p>\n

The garda witness said he found the girl lying in a shower tray in blood-soaked clothing next to a discarded steak knife. He said she had sustained multiple stab wounds.<\/p>\n

The garda said the girl\u2019s mother was sitting on the floor of the bathroom, was largely unresponsive to his instructions and was staring at her daughter.<\/p>\n

The garda agreed he had said in his statement about the events that the girl was \u201cgasping for breath\u201d.<\/p>\n

The garda said he told his colleague to call for an ambulance, arrested the accused at the scene and then did his best to make the girl comfortable.<\/p>\n

He said he knelt beside the girl and lifted her head gently on to his knee to try to keep her airways open.<\/p>\n

He said he noticed \u201ca mark on her neck\u201d and a phone charging cable in her hair.<\/p>\n

It was heard earlier in the trial, which began last Monday, that the cable may have been used by the accused as a ligature on the girl\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n

The garda said the girl told him her name, and her \u201ceyes were closing\u201d.<\/p>\n

The garda said he kept speaking to the girl and trying to reassure her she was okay. He said he wrapped the girl in towels and applied pressure to her most severe wounds to try to stem the blood flow.<\/p>\n

The garda assisted paramedics at the scene and followed them and the girl in an ambulance to hospital. He later accompanied her being transferred via ambulance to Crumlin children\u2019s hospital, Dublin.<\/p>\n

The court heard medical evidence that the girl would have died if doctors had not drained blood from a sack around the girl\u2019s heart after they discovered it had leaked into the area and was putting pressure on her lungs and heart.<\/p>\n

The court heard the girl suffered 79 stab wounds and was transferred to Crumlin hospital for open-heart surgery and general surgery to repair knife wounds to her chest, back and arms.<\/p>\n

Hospital staff involved in the girl\u2019s care were offered psychological counselling due to the \u201ctraumatic\u201d nature of her injuries, it was heard.<\/p>\n

Despite her \u201clife-threatening\u201d injuries, the girl survived and spoke to investigating garda\u00ed two months afterwards.<\/p>\n

The court was shown a DVD recording of the girl\u2019s interview, in which she told them her mother had stood over her in her bed on the morning in question, and told her: \u201cI\u2019m going to kill you and then I\u2019m going to kill myself, because that is what\u2019s best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The girl said her mother used a \u201cbig kitchen knife\u201d stabbing her in her bed. She said her mother \u201cdragged\u201d her into the adjoining en-suite bathroom and continued stabbing her in her stomach, chest, back and legs.<\/p>\n

The girl, who was not cross-examined by the accused\u2019s defence barrister, said her mother told her she feared people were going to take her away from her and that it was \u201cbest\u201d if they both died.<\/p>\n

When entering her \u201cnot guilty\u201d plea in court, the accused also added: \u201cI was out of my mind at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A resident at the temporary accommodation centre gave evidence saying they heard the girl\u2019s screams coming from the family\u2019s room and they tried to open the door but it was locked and they phoned the emergency services.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination by the accused\u2019s senior counsel, Mark Nicholas, the witness agreed that prior to the alleged attack the accused confided to her that she was concerned about her mental state and that of her husband, who the court heard was suffering from mental health issues at the time.<\/p>\n

The witness said the accused told her she wanted to travel back to Ukraine to get psychiatric help.<\/p>\n

The witness said the accused had previously made two failed attempts to return to Ukraine and had returned each time to the temporary accommodation.<\/p>\n

The trial continues before a jury of seven men and five women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A garda told a court today how he found an eight-year old girl bleeding and \u201cgasping for breath\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,65264,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,11,12,1844,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-284537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-central-criminal-court","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-garda-siochana","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-limerick","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115895422694090348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}