A 46-year old mother accused of attempting to murder her eight year daughter is finding her time on remand in prison “extremely difficult”, a court has heard.
At Ennis District Court, the woman appeared for the fourth time in court in connection with being charged with attempting to murder her daughter at temporary accommodation in Clare the two were staying at the time of September 27th last year.
In court, Sgt Louis Moloney asked for the time to serve the Book of Evidence be extended to May 24th.
Solicitor, Tara Godfrey for the accused said, “I can appreciate that the State does need this amount of time in preparing a Book of Evidence, it is a complicated matter but my client is finding her time in custody extremely difficult. I have a psychiatric report that I can hand in and ask the State to do everything in its power to expedite the making of the Book of Evidence”.
The court required the services of a Russian interpreter for the accused for the brief hearing.
The court previously extended the accused woman’s legal aid certificate to cover a forensic psychiatric report after Ms Godfrey stated that her client “had been in psychiatric in-patient treatment from September up to the date she was brought to the Garda Station so we have a chain of custody of my client since the alleged event”.
The woman appeared via video-link from the women’s wing at Limerick prison where she is currently on remand. At the end of the hearing into the case today, the woman said ‘thank you’ before the video link was cut.
In the aftermath of the alleged attempted murder last September, the young girl’s condition was described as “critical” after she was allegedly stabbed multiple times at her accommodation.
After the girl subsequently underwent emergency surgery at Crumlin Children’s Hospital in Dublin a Garda spokesman said that she was “out of danger”.
The accused was first arrested and brought to Ennis Garda Station for questioning on March 14th and brought before a special sitting of Ennis District Court the following day when she was charged.
The accused made ‘no reply’ after charge and caution.
Judge Mary Larkin remanded the woman in custody via video-link to appear again at Ennis District Court to May 24th.