A WOMAN who doused an 18- month-old toddler with petrol and who “presents a clear danger to the public” has been jailed for three years.
Majella McCarthy (26), Galway Road, Ennis, Co Clare, first poured petrol over her father after flying into a rage at the family home before going to a car parked outside and dousing a baby girl and her mother with petrol.
During her trial at Ennis Circuit Court last July, the State argued that three lives had been put at risk and it was a mercy that the woman had not been carrying an igniter at the time.
It took a jury just 35 minutes to find McCarthy guilty on three counts of assault causing harm at Spanish Point Road, Miltown Malbay, on March 4th last.
At Limerick Circuit Court yesterday, Judge Seán Ó Donneabháin said McCarthy, who suffers from what doctors described as an anti-social personality disorder, “presents a clear danger to the public”.
The judge had adjourned sentencing until yesterday to allow for a probation and psychiatric report to be prepared to determine if she would co-operate with a treatment programme.
Before imposing the jail term, the judge said it was obvious from all the reports prepared for the court that McCarthy remained a danger to other persons and the option of placing her in any setting other than prison was not open to him.
The court heard that in one report prepared by the Central Mental Hospital, McCarthy, who has been exposed to therapeutic sessions since she was 16, was at high risk of reoffending.
On March 4th last, at the family home at Spanish Point Road in Miltown Malbay, McCarthy doused her father, John, with petrol after she flew into a rage because he had got a barring order out against her.
She then went on to the road where she opened the back door of a car which happened to be parked outside and poured petrol over Aisling Kelly, an 18-month-old baby, and her mother, Mary.
In her victim impact statement, Ms Kelly said she and her young daughter had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and that she was afraid to let her children out of her sight since the ordeal.
At the last court sitting, McCarthy’s father appealed for help for his daughter, expressing the fear that the next time she was in court it might be for killing him.
Mr McCarthy told the court: “I think she is getting dangerous. It is getting serious. I am not here for sympathy for myself, but help for my daughter.”
At yesterday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Ó Donneabháin said he had taken Mr McCarthy’s evidence to heart and had tried to identify a treatment programme for McCarthy, but, because of her lack of co-operation, no such place was available.
He told her: “Your father was also afraid that if you came out of jail you would revisit him with violence on your release and, I think, unfortunately, he may be correct.”
The judge said it was “incredible” that she had subjected an infant to such an assault and said she was devoid of normal factors such as “guilt, outrage and sympathy” which inhibit a person from taking particular actions.
Judge Ó Donneabháin said the extent to which McCarthy was prepared to act out her emotions was seen on her last occasion in court when she spat at counsel for the State Stephen Coughlan and threatened her own legal counsel.
The court heard she had also assaulted a garda in court who had tried to settle her down.
Defence counsel Pat Whyms told the court that his client had given birth to a baby two months before the incident with the petrol and that the baby was taken into care and that McCarthy had been living on the streets.
He said despite his client’s psychological difficulties, she had never been in trouble for a serious offence before this incident.
Judge Ó Donneabháin described the offence as a “nasty dangerous type of assault carried out in a wilful manner” and imposed a three-year jail sentence on the assault charges and a further six months, to run concurrently, for the assault on the garda during her court appearance.
He also recommended that whatever psychiatric treatment was available at the Dochas Centre in Mountjoy or the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum be made available to her.
During yesterday’s proceedings McCarthy remained hunched over, muttering to herself and pulling at her hair. She also called on the judge to “just give me my sentence”.