AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD girl allegedly stabbed multiple times by her mother in an unprovoked attack, told gardaí how the accused stood over her with a knife and told her “I am going to kill you”.

In a recorded DVD interview with specially trained gardaí, the girl said her mother later “dragged” her from her bed and into a bathroom where she continued the alleged knife attack.

The girl’s mother is on trial at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, charged with one count of attempted murder of her daughter, at a temporary accommodation centre located in the mid-west region, on 27 September, 2022.

On the opening day of the trial on Monday, the accused entered a “not guilty” plea and told the court: “I was out of my mind at that time.”

A jury of seven men and five women sworn in to hear the case have been told that the woman’s mental health at the time would be central to their determining a verdict in the trial.

Prosecuting barrister, senior counsel Lorcan Connolly said the jury must decide, based on the evidence they hear, whether or not the accused was “aware” of what she was doing, or if she was “laboring under a mental disorder” which made her lack the “necessary intent” to kill.

The accused wept as the garda DVD interview with the girl, recorded on 4 November, 2022, two months after the alleged attack was played in court.

The girl, now aged 11, began by telling gardaí her favourite hobbies were performing “gymnastics”, “drawing” and “making slime”.

Outlining the alleged attack, the girl said: “I woke up, mum had a strange look on her face, she was pacing around looking for something, then she came over to me with a big kitchen knife and started hitting me with it in the bed.”

“I woke up, I saw her standing there, holding the knife over me, she stood there for about five seconds and then she started hitting me with the knife.”

“I was shouting please stop, I am screaming. It looked like a big kitchen knife, big, pointy, sharp, it was in her hand.”

Clasping her hands above her head, the girl showed gardaí how her mother allegedly began stabbing her with the knife in a downwards motion.

“She was facing me, the knife was in her right hand, then she took it in both hands and she started hitting me with it.”

“She started hitting me with the knife in my stomach, chest, my back, my arms, and one caught me in the leg.”

“She dragged me from the bed into the bathroom, and I remember clearly, when she was dragging me to the bathroom, I looked back and the bed was covered in blood.”

“I can remember the pain, I remember it being really painful. The most pain I felt was near my stomach, that’s where I lost most of my blood, that’s where she hit me the most.”

“When she dragged me into the shower she told me, ‘I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to kill myself – because that is what is best’.”

“My mother said ‘this is what’s supposed to happen, it’s for the best, it would be better this way’.”

The girl told gardaí she then heard a neighbour knocking on their door “shouting and asking questions and calling the police”.

“My mum grabbed me and pulled me into the bathroom, she continued to hit me with the knife in the bathroom, she said she did not want (people) to take me away from her.”

“I didn’t understand this, why someone would take me away, I told her I would find my way back to her if someone took me away.”

“It all stopped when my mum stopped hitting me, she just calmed down and sat next to me and started talking to me, and the ambulance came.”

“She was talking to me in a really tired and sad voice, I was thinking she was really upset and sad with me.”

“I was afraid to say anything at that point, I was quiet, I think my mum was waiting or me to just give up, I didn’t want her to feel threatened and kill me, so I stayed silent.”

“I was lying on the bathroom floor, I could hear the (emergency services) outside, I heard our door being knocked down and the ambulance came.”

“The doctor came over to me and put me on a mat so he could carry me out, I told him to be more gentle because it was really painful.”

“The nurses were cleaning the blood and wounds and giving me medicine which was not very nice to drink.”

Showing gardaí her chest area, the girl said: “I have a huge wound here, I’m told it might take two to three years for it to heal. Most of my blood came from my back, stomach and chest.”

When asked what she and her mother did prior to the alleged attack, the girl replied: “I said ‘I love you’, we normally say prayers, so we said our prayers to the Saints and to Our Father.”

Lorcan Connolly, prosecuting, told the trial on Monday that when Gardaí forced their way into the accommodation centre they discovered the accused in a bathroom holding her daughter who had “cuts all over her body”.

Connolly said the girl was bleeding heavily and had sustained in excess of 70 knife wounds, including to her neck and torso, and that there was a phone charger cable in her hair.

Connolly also said that the prosecution’s case was that the accused had also used a mobile phone charging cable as a ligature on her daughter.

The court heard the girl, her mother and her father fled to Ireland in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The accused’s barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, with Antoinette Simon, instructed by Kieran O’Brien Solicitors, told the court the defence would not be cross examining the girl.

The trial is being heard before Judge Kerida Naidoo. The trial continues Wednesday and is expected to continue into next week.