A mother-of-four who left her kids, including a six-month-old baby home alone while she went boozing with her buddies walked free from court on Thursday after a judge suspended her eight month jail term for two years.
Belfast Crown Court heard how twice a week, the single mother left her nine-year-old son in charge of his younger siblings aged seven, two and six months to go out to “socialise” with friends, leaving the boy with a mobile phone but with neither instructions on how to use it nor a number where she could be contacted.
Prosecuting lawyer Philip Henry recounted how the boy was able to tell police and social workers how he would make up bottles for the baby and that his mother would come home smelling of drink.
The lawyer described the final incident when the 29-year-old woman, who cannot be identified to protect her children, came home so drunk that she could not let herself into her own house and had to ask a neighbour and then her seven-year-old daughter for help finding her keys.
It was then that the “wilfull abandonment” of her children came to light and the court heard of a specific incident when the eldest boy was taken to hospital with a cut on his forehead after his mum “threw a glass in his direction” during an argument and it smashed on the wall, leaving him with a laceration above his eye.
Arrested and interviewed the woman admitted that leaving her son in charge of his younger siblings, she went out to pubs, to friends’ houses or “in the car with a friend” but would only give cops the first name of one friend and refused to give any further details of who she had been with.
She later pleaded guilty to one charge of causing actual bodily harm to her son and six further charges of child cruelty by wilfully abandoning her son on dates between 1 January 2010 and 27 May 2011.
Her son told police how his mum would leave at around 10pm and not return until around two of three in the morning but that she called him once an hour on the mobile phone she left with him.
There was also evidence, said Mr Henry that the boy had “missed a significant number of days at school, around 20 because he would be too tired in the morning to go to school as a result of him having to be up late to look after the family”.
He added the nine-year-old boy also told of how, even when he was so tired, he had to get breakfast ready for his brothers and sisters because his mum “would get up late in the afternoon.
The lawyer said while the indictment only related to the eldest boy, it could have been expanded to include the rest of the family and the neglect “involved the household”.
Defence lawyer Kelly Doherty said the case was “very upsetting” and that the defendant herself was “extremely ashamed and embarrassed to find herself before the court”.
She said it was not a case of her treating her kids badly, claiming that she provided a “loving and supportive environment” for them but that she was alone, “struggling desperately” and simply could not cope.
Ms Doherty revealed the 29-year-old had called Social Services herself seeking help and assistance but that none was forthcoming, adding that ironically, now she is before the court, she is “getting all the help she needs”.
The lawyer told the court that since the behaviour came to light, the children have been removed from the ‘at risk’ register and that their mother has “done everything she could have...to provide a good standard of care for her children”.
Handing down the suspended term Judge David McFarland told her he believed she had been immature and an inadequate parent who had put her social life before the needs of her children but that the steps she had recently taken “gives the court some confidence”.
He added that although the offences warranted a jail term, he had to take into consideration the impact such a term would have on the children because if she went to prison, they would have to go into care as there was no-one else to look after them.
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