The trial of a 39-year-old mother who faces charges of cruelty and neglect towards eight of her children, collapsed today due to technical difficulties at Galway courthouse.
It was discovered that a live video link facility, which was used to allow a child to give evidence from another room in the courthouse yesterday, was not recording her evidence to the trial.
Judge Karen O’Connor explained to the jury today that, by law, evidence heard by video-link “shall” be recorded, but unfortunately, in this case, this did not occur in relation to the girl’s evidence yesterday.
Judge O’Connor said she had no alternative but to discharge the jury.
The woman, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the children, who are aged between 5 and 18, pleaded not guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court earlier this week to 44 charges of child cruelty, by willfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, or abandoning the children, or allowing the children to be assaulted, neglected, or abandoned, between September 2006, and May 2011.
Senior Prosecution Counsel, Shane Costello, said it would be the prosecution case that after the children were taken into care in May, 2011, they began to tell of how their mother physically abused them over the years.
They recounted stories of how she used to assault them with wooden spoons, a leather belt and a bamboo back-scratcher, and hit their heads off the furniture.
She would also pour washing-up liquid down their throats if they said a bad word.
Two of the boys recalled how their mother threw them out of her car one day because they spilled ice-cream in the back seat.
Shane Costelloe informed the jury that all 44 charges related to allegations of child cruelty and neglect.
He said that during Garda interview, the mother acknowledged she used physical force on the five older children, but she said it was no more than what was done to herself.
The eldest child gave evidence by videolink to the court last evening.
Her evidence was not recorded due to a technical hitch and that was the reason the jury was discharged and a new trial date set on January 12th.
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