Boy murdered by stepmother was taken through the 'pure evil' of a woman he loved and trusted

THE MOTHER of a "beautiful, clever, happy and caring" four-year-old boy, who was murdered by his stepmother, has said her son's life was taken through the "pure evil" of a woman the boy loved and trusted.

The child's mother said she thinks of her son "crying for help, not understanding what was happening" and said she knows the child would have been frightened and looking for her.

She described the actions of the stepmother and the boy's father as a "betrayal" after she had trusted them to look after her "beautiful, innocent baby boy".

She added: "I find it so hard to understand why they did what they did. Why medical assistance was not sought so that maybe he would be here today. I can't begin to imagine the pain he suffered in the weeks leading up to his death."

The stepmother, a woman in her 30s from the south west of the country, pleaded guilty to the four-year-old's murder on the fourth day of her trial at the Central Criminal Court last year. The court heard this Monday that the defendant has no previous convictions.

The trial heard that on March 13, 2021, the child's father phoned emergency services, saying his son had fallen from the top bunk of his bed one hour earlier and could not be roused.

When paramedics arrived they found the boy lying on the floor of his bedroom, unresponsive. They rushed him to hospital and despite emergency intervention and surgery, he did not recover. Medical professionals noted numerous bruises of various ages all over the child's face, head, torso and legs that were indicative of non-accidental injuries or abuse.

The father explained the injuries by saying that his son was the "the clumsiest child ever" and that he had run into a door or been hurt playing football.

However, it emerged during the stepmother's trial that he had been subjected to physical abuse for weeks and spent four days grounded in his room before his stepmother shook him and struck his head off the floor. He had also suffered a blunt force injury to his abdomen that lacerated his liver. A pathologist found that either injury to the head or the liver would have caused death on their own.

The defendant claimed that the boy was a "bold cheeky child" and often had to be grounded. She told gardai that on the day the boy suffered his fatal injuries, she "snapped" and recalled "shaking him and screaming at him to behave" before he fell on the floor.

The parties cannot be identified due to an order made by Mr Justice Paul McDermott under the Children Act to protect the identity of a child witness.

Mr Justice McDermott will sentence the stepmother on Wednesday to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murder, before hearing an application by broadcaster RTE and media group Mediahuis to lift the order preventing the defendant's identification. He will also sentence the stepmother for two counts of child cruelty in relation to wilful assaults on the same child in January and March 2021.

In November 2024, the child's father was sentenced to seven years in prison having pleaded guilty to endangerment, neglect and impeding the apprehension or prosecution of the stepmother, knowing or believing she had murdered his son.

Passing sentence at the time, Mr Justice McDermott described the father's actions as "shameful" and said he bore a high level of criminal responsibility for failing to nurture and protect his son.

In her statement today, the child's mother said her son was born in early 2016, a "fine, healthy little boy". She described him as a "clever little child who brought so much love and happiness into all our lives". When his sister played peekaboo with him or tickled him, he would laugh, making everyone else laugh.

"He had the biggest smile and the most beautiful brown eyes. He was a perfect little boy," she said. When he potty trained himself at just 18 months, he felt he was a "little man" and would insist on walking instead of going in his buggy. He adored his younger siblings and would insist on helping to care for them and would kiss and cuddle them, she said.

One of the mother's treasured possessions is a video of her son singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to his little sister. "He was such a caring little boy," she said.

When he saw a homeless man sitting on the ground, he asked his mother to give the man a pizza and later that night he worried about him and sought assurance from his mother that he would be "okay".

After receiving the "worst phone call any mother could get," she recalled being in hospital with the boy's father and the defendant when doctors came to say there was nothing they could do. She made the "hardest decision a mother could make" to turn her son's life support off but before that happened, the boy's father and stepmother asked to be left alone with him.

She said: "I can only imagine what they were saying to my poor child's lifeless body."

After the life support machine was switched off, she recalled watching her "beautiful little child's heartbeat go down and down" until he flatlined and she begged doctors to turn the machine back on.

She planned the funeral herself and recalled how the child's father and stepmother "stood in God's holy house and said how much they loved him and that he was a superhero."

She said his life was taken by "pure evil", by someone her son "loved and trusted".

Earlier this Monday, Detective Garda Shane O'Neill said that in September 2020, the child's mother was suffering mental health problems and agreed to allow her son to live with his father, who was living with the defendant.

The mother and other family members were supposed to have a video call with the child every Sunday afternoon, but over a period of ten weeks, they reported that the child appeared only twice. On other occasions they were told he couldn't speak because he was "being bold". In February 2021, a family friend noticed a mark on the child's face which the accused said was the result of an accident.

A friend of the defendant told gardai that during that time, the defendant confided in her that she was "unable to cope" and had gone to her sister's house for a few days for a break. The same friend brought a chocolate egg to the house for the child in late February but was told the child was upstairs because he had been bold. The defendant refused to allow her to go upstairs to give the egg to the child. The same friend found out some days later that the child still had not received the chocolate.

In early March, the defendant complained to her friend that the child's father did not want people calling to the house because of the boy's behaviour. At two family celebrations between March 9 and the fatal assault on March 13, the child remained in his room and was not allowed to participate.

In garda interviews, the defendant said the child was grounded from March 9 for four days due to his behaviour. While grounded, he was not allowed to leave his room other than to go to the toilet or for emergencies and had to sit on the floor, not the bed.

At 12.46pm on March 13, 2021, the child's father phoned emergency services, saying his son had fallen from the top bunk of his bed one hour earlier and could not be roused. He described his son as "the clumsiest child ever". 

An advanced paramedic who was first on the scene said he met the child's father halfway up the stairs. Inside an upstairs bedroom, he saw the child lying on his side on the floor in the foetal position with his head resting on a pillow.

The paramedic noted "yellowish" bruising, suggesting older injuries, and a bump or haematoma on the back of the head. When asked about the older bruises, the father said the child had previously run into a door.

The father also said the child had been "bold, acting up, behaving badly and was grounded and confined to his bedroom," the paramedic said. The paramedic said he didn't want to waste time so he took the boy in his arms and carried him to the ambulance.

The child's pupils did not react to light, indicating a significant head injury, he said. He also showed signs of "posturing", whereby the limbs become extended and stiff, further suggesting a head injury and swelling or pressure on the brain. The paramedic put a collar on the child to restrict spine movement and called ahead for the paediatric resuscitation room at a nearby hospital to be prepared.

A supervisor who was with the advanced paramedic said she also observed bruises to the boy's eyes, face, torso and to both legs. He was "very, very pale, almost white" and was not moving.

The child's father told the paramedic that the boy had fallen from the top bunk of the bed about an hour earlier.

The father also said that the bruises on the child's face were caused when he had been playing soccer earlier in the week. He said the child "bruises easily" and when asked about bruising around the child's eyes, he said the boy "ran into a door the day before or two days before".

When asked if the child's mother could be contacted, the father said she was "not in our lives any more".

Dr Stephen O'Riordan told the trial that he was called in to review the child's case after he had been brought to a second  hospital by ambulance. He described how the "whole theatre gasped" when they pulled back the drapes and saw the child, covered in bruises.

He documented 17 areas of bruising or injury to both eyes, the ears, arms, legs and back. The "black eyes," combined with bruises around both ears are "classic signs of physical abuse," he said.

Dr O'Riordan said the child's father had said the black eyes were the result of two falls over the previous two weeks. Dr O'Riordan said: "Any fall in a four-year-old child that I would see regularly would never have two black eyes. One or the other, but having two would more likely be from a head injury."

There were possible "grab marks" on one shoulder and to the left elbow and multiple bruises on the back and chest suggesting the boy was "landing on his chest or back a lot, which is consistent with non-accidental injury".

The most significant injury, he said, was a "hugely extensive injury" to the back of the head.

A laceration to the boy's liver, Dr O'Riordan said, would have been caused by "extreme force" and would normally be associated with a car accident. X-rays carried out by another paediatrician showed the boy had previously suffered a fractured rib that was starting to heal. The healing would suggest that the rib injury was seven to ten days old, Dr O'Riordan said.

Dr O'Riordan said the number of unexplained injuries left him with a "significant concern" about physical or intentional abuse against the child.

A consultant intensive care doctor said the head injuries the boy suffered would usually be associated with a crash where a car hits a wall, or with a fall from a "very significant height".

Dr Niamh Mitchell, a specialist in emergency medicine, said that when the child arrived in hospital, he had the most serious type of head injury. Dr Mitchell noted the pattern of bruising across the child's body, including the inner thighs.

She said: "It looked like he had been hit on more than one occasion because of the different colours. It didn't look like something you would get from normal play. The inside of the legs is not something you would injure in normal play."

A consultant intensive care consultant said she did not receive a satisfactory explanation of the bruises of different ages from the child's father, which gave her cause for concern. She said the father told her that the boy had been "grounded", which she found "a little unusual for a child of that young age".

She said she has received training in how to recognise non-accidental injuries. Bruises of different ages with a non-satisfactory explanation from the primary caregiver gave rise to concerns, she said.

State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers told the trial that head injuries the child suffered were the result of shaking and being struck off a hard surface such as a floor or wall.

Both the injury to the liver and the head could have been fatal on their own, Dr Okkers said.

The brain, she said, was significantly swollen with subdural bleeding above the right ear. There was also evidence of "axonal injury", which is caused by the brain shifting from side to side. Such injuries are associated with road traffic collisions and assault, the pathologist said. In a child, she said it would be caused by shaking, punching or striking the head, causing it to rotate or move back and forth.

You don't get axonal injuries from falling off beds, Dr Okkers said, because a rapid rotation of the head is required. "The head has to move at some speed for the brain to move," she said.

Dr Okkers noted lacerations to the front and back of the child's liver which would have been caused by direct trauma to the abdomen. She said the injury would have been caused by a punch, a knee or a kick or a blow with a blunt object. It would not be caused by a fall, she said. The liver injury would have been painful and would have caused the child to cry, Dr Okkers said.

The pathologist concluded that the cause of death was a traumatic head injury in association with blunt force trauma to the abdomen.

The different ages and distribution of the bruises, she said, would not typically be found in a child. While children often have bruises to the knees, shins and forehead, the injuries to the child's arms, legs, face, each side of the head, chest, sides and back are not typical.

A series of oval-shaped bruises to the right shoulder could be fingerprints as a result of someone handling the child, she said.

Detective Garda Treasa Kelly said she searched the house where the child had lived with his father and stepmother. In the child's bedroom she found Nurofen for children, arnica ointment and a hot and cold pack for the treatment of minor injuries, sprains and swelling.

The packaging on the arnica ointment, Det Gda Kelly said, indicated that it is a homeopathic remedy for treating bruises.

Garda Michelle O'Carroll said she searched the master bedroom of the house and found dirty laundry including soiled child's underwear and socks, a soiled bed sheet and a Toy Story pajama top.