A grandmother was knifed in the face and beaten with sticks by a group of women at her home in Rathkeale, Co Limerick, a court has heard.<\/p>\n
Christina McCarthy, n\u00e9e Harty, dived under her bed at her home to escape the vicious assault, Limerick Circuit Criminal Court was told.<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy (61) was left with permanent disfiguring scarring to her face, following the attack on December 10th, 2019.<\/p>\n
The victim told garda\u00ed she woke in her bedroom surrounded by at least eight women who then set upon her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can still see their faces and hear myself roaring for mercy to let me go, I don\u2019t know how I survived it,\u201d Ms McCarthy said in a victim-impact statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted me dead, that\u2019s how I feel,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Prosecuting barrister Lily Buckley told the court Ms McCarthy was caught by her hair \u201clike a rag doll\u201d during the attack.<\/p>\n
Mother and daughter Nora \u201cJosie\u201d Harty, (58) and Mary Ellen Daly (35), a cousin and niece of Ms McCarthy, both of Lisheen Park, Patrickswell, Co Limerick, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Ms McCarthy.<\/p>\n
Christina Casey (48), of St Aidan\u2019s Close, Brookfield, Tallaght, Dublin, pleaded guilty to violent disorder.<\/p>\n
Rita Johnson (51), of St Ita\u2019s Street, St Mary\u2019s Park, Limerick City, admitted to one count of trespassing at Ms McCarthy\u2019s home on the day in question.<\/p>\n
The court heard that a day before the attack, the victim and her daughter were involved in an altercation with Ms Daly and another woman outside a shopping centre.<\/p>\n
The victim told garda\u00ed she believed she struck Ms Daly first. It was heard there was another earlier alleged incident on board a \u201cparty bus\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Buckley said that on the day of the attack, the victim was asleep in bed in her home around lunchtime when \u201cshe opened her eyes\u201d and saw \u201cthree women coming for her\u201d: Ms Daly, Ms Harty and Ms Casey.<\/p>\n
Ms Buckley said the victim said she heard Ms Harty tell her: \u201cWe\u2019re not letting you go, we\u2019re cutting you up, we\u2019re killing you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Buckley said Ms Daly also told the victim: \u201cI\u2019m cutting you up. I\u2019m killing you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy told garda\u00ed she thought she was going to die as Ms Harty and Ms Daly attacked her with knives, and Ms Casey was armed with a baseball bat. The barrister said Ms Harty and Ms Daly caused slash injuries to the victim\u2019s face and hands.<\/p>\n
The four defendants, who are from the Travelling community, were observed by an independent witness leaving the victim\u2019s home. The witness told garda\u00ed they saw 20 angry and screaming people running from the victim\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy was taken from the scene to University Hospital Limerick for treatment of slash wounds to her face, a thumb and an index finger. Ms Buckley said the victim underwent a number of surgeries.<\/p>\n
In a victim-impact statement, Ms McCarthy said: \u201cMy face and hands were destroyed, affecting how I look, I will never be the same in my face and the pain never goes away from my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy said she continues to suffer with anxiety, panic attacks and she said she is constantly looking over her shoulder \u201cwaiting to be attacked again\u201d.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed later arrested Ms Harty, Ms Daly, Ms Casey and Ms Johnson and they all denied being at the victim\u2019s home on the day.<\/p>\n
Defence barristers told the court their clients are remorseful and apologetic.<\/p>\n
In mitigation, positive reports prepared by the Probation Service and Tipperary Rural Travellers Project were provided to the court.<\/p>\n
The four accused\u2019s barristers asked sentencing judge Fiona O\u2019Sullivan to spare their clients from an immediate custodial penalty and instead impose community service orders.<\/p>\n
The judge remanded the four accused on bail for sentence in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grandmother was knifed in the face and beaten with sticks by a group of women at her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[19620,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1109,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-297995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-bob","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-media","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115939902976813644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297995","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=297995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}