'Children were failed by everyone around them'

JUDGES REMARKS:Judge Miriam Reynolds was speaking as she sentenced a Co Roscommon mother to seven years in prison after she pleaded guilty to incest and sexual assault of one son and the wilful neglect and ill-treatment of all her six children.

The judge said she was concerned by the fact that the health board had been involved since 1996 with the family but the children had not been taken into care until 2004.

The judge pointed out that during that time the children had gone to school with head lice “crawling down their faces”. They had been wearing shoes which were two sizes too small, they had been urinating on the walls and defecating in their underwear.

“Why did nobody do anything? All it takes is for one person to stand idly by. These children were failed by everyone around them,” said the judge. “It simply has to be said.”

Judge Reynolds pointed out that the health board had tried to have the children removed from the family home but had been frustrated in this in October 2000 when the mother went to the High Court and got an order preventing the board from doing that.

The health board had gone back to the court but failed to have the restraining order removed and in May 2001, the High Court directed that it remain in place until a district court judge made a childcare order. Judge Reynolds pointed out that this had never happened.

The judge had heard evidence that after the High Court injunction, the health board felt it had to be very careful in taking any steps to deal with this case. In the meantime, another child had been born into the family.

The judge said it seemed that the mother had become expert in hiding the reality of what was going on in the home from the board. Biscuits were bought when social workers were due and, indeed, this was the only time the children ever got biscuits.

The living room was tidied so that everything looked normal for these visits but in the background and only a few rooms away, there was chaos “with mice and rats running freely around the house and in the cupboards where the children’s food was”.

Home helps were provided by the board to help the mother but “somehow, and I do not know how she did it”, the mother seemed able to conceal from them the fact that anything was wrong with the children. “I still do not know how that could be,” added the judge.

Bernard Madden SC, counsel for the accused woman, also questioned why no one had acted to help the children. He said that while his client accepted she had let her children down in a most fundamental way, they had also been let down by the community and various organs of the community.

The children had attended school and it must have been obvious that they were badly dressed, unkempt and had problems with their education.

Certainly the children in the school had noticed that they were smelly and unkempt and they did not want to be associated with them. He said it was also known that two of the children had been in hospital for nutritional and gastro-intestinal problems. Mr Madden said all of these things must have been obvious to the community at large and the various organisations.

After the court hearing, Garda Sgt John Hynes, who led the investigation,said he wanted to pay tribute to the six children for the courage they had shown in assisting gardaí.

He said everyone involved in the investigation had been affected by it. “I hope the children can now move on to a happier future,” he said.