“Mom said she was going to kill me and then kill herself”. Those were the words of a child whose mother is alleged to have repeatedly stabbed her.
The Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, heard chilling evidence today (Tuesday) from a little girl about an attack in which, she said, her mother repeatedly stabbed her, leaving her with more than 70 wounds.
“My mom said that she was going to kill me and then kill herself. She said it was for the best, that this was how it was meant to be,” a Garda interview with the young girl, played in court, revealed.
“She said she was really scared that someone will take me away from her … I said, if they take me, I will come back to you.”
The eight year old told her story to Gardaà through a translator and the DVD recording of the interview, conducted in a special suite in Henry Street Garda Station, was played to the court.
The child’s mother is being tried on a charge of attempted murder, to which she is pleading not guilty. Neither can be named legally as the child is a juvenile.
There were emotional scenes as the DVD opened and the little girl bounded into the interview room on screen, her mother began crying uncontrollably in the dock.
Judge Kerida Naidoo ordered a brief break to allow her to compose herself.
The accused woman is a Russia national who, the court heard, had fled the war in Ukraine and was living in shared accommodation provided for her and her family in the Mid West region at the time.
The jury of five women and seven men watched the interview, conducted by Garda Sandra Ryan, a member specially trained in interviewing children.
In her interview, the girl said that the night before the alleged attack, the two had said some prayers and gone to bed. She told her mother “I love you”, as she settled down for the night.
Answering questions about what happened on the morning of September 27, 2022, the child, in the interview, said she woke to see her mother “pacing around the room and looking for something”.
She said her mother came over to her in her bed “with a big kitchen knife and started hitting me with it”. The girl later described the knife as “long and sharp”.
The girl said she was screaming telling her mother “please stop”. But, she said “Mom grabbed me and dragged me into the bathroom, where she continued to hit me”.
“When I was in the bathroom I was a bit relieved because the tiles were cold and it was less painful. She said this is what was best.”
The little girl said that the door was broken down and an ambulance crew arrived.
“The doctor was holding me by my back and I told him to be gentle because it was rally painful,” the girl said in the Garda interview.
The child said in interview that her mother had stabbed her mainly in her chest, stomach, and arms.
Asked about the bleeding, she said her bed was “covered in blood”. After dragging her from the bed and into the shower, the child said that her mother said: “I’m going to kill you and after, I will kill myself. It is for the best.”
The eight-year-old said that, after a time, her mother calmed down.
“She sat down and started talking to me in a very sad, tired voice. She said this is what should happen, that it needs to happen,” she told GardaÃ.
During that conversation, the daughter said she was “afraid to say anything. I felt she was waiting for me to just give up. I stayed silent. I didn’t want for her to feel threatened and kill me.”
She told the interviewer that she remembers the pain “but I don’t remember what it felt like. But it must have been very painful because you can imagine, using a big knife to hit a small person.”
At that time, the court heard, the door was forced open and the emergency services arrived.
At the end of the interview, asked if she had any questions, the eight year old said: “Yes – my cat. Can I have my cat back?”
The court later heard that the cat had travelled with the mother and child from Ukraine.