A WOMAN beat her three-year-old daughter to such an extent after she soiled herself in bed that the child died in hospital days later of brain injury, a court in Tralee was told yesterday.
A postmortem attributed the cause of death to swelling and bleeding of the brain. The child also had dozens of bruises on her limbs.
Monika Paczkowska (34), Fountain Court, Tralee, pleaded guilty at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court to the wilful ill-treatment of her daughter Sefora Kycwak in a manner likely to cause injury or suffering on August 2nd and 3rd, 2005. A charge of manslaughter was withdrawn.
Deirdre Murphy SC, prosecuting, said the charge to which Paczkowska pleaded under the Children’s Act 2001 provided for a broad range of offences and this was at the most serious level.
“The ill-treatment of 3½-year- old Sefora Kycwak led to her death at the hands of her mother in whose care she was at the time.”
Ms Murphy told the court how Sefora was born prematurely and spent some months in Holles Street and in Kerry General hospitals before being discharged home.
Neighbours who were called to the house on August 2nd shortly before 1am found Sefora lying lifeless on top of the stairs and her mother hitting her in an attempt to revive her, Ms Murphy said. Paczkowska said she had vomited after drinking cola and had fallen.
Doctors at Kerry General Hospital found the child had a brain bleed and they found extensive bruising. They alerted gardaí. Sefora died three days later.
Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster noted 31 areas of bruising to the head and neck along with dozens of bruises to the limbs and body. She also found older scars.
The DPP directed that charges be brought. Det Sgt Fearghal Pattwell said she was granted bail in the High Court despite Garda objections and later absconded. Almost five years later, this January, she was arrested in London and extradited here.
Paczkowska was from a Roma gypsy family originally from Poland. She had come to Ireland as an asylum seeker.
Det Sgt Pattwell told Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, defending, that she had five children with three fathers and had been twice married. She was now in a relationship with another man with whom she had another child, now aged two years.
Mr Vaughan Buckley said his client had been examined by a consultant psychiatrist. She claimed she had been raped by four men at the age of 14 and had been physically abused by fathers of her children. Mr Vaughan Buckley said she accepted she had “flipped” but she had not planned to do so and she did not want to kill her child.
She was a person of good character who had a terrible life and was now in a relationship with a nice supportive man.
Judge Carroll Moran adjourned sentencing until Wednesday and remanded Paczkowska in custody.