Overview
- Prosecutors told the Central Criminal Court the four-year-old died from a traumatic head injury with blunt abdominal trauma, with a lacerated liver noted at post-mortem.
- Doctors and paramedics reported multiple bruises of different ages and a black eye, and clinicians are expected to testify the injuries were not consistent with a bunk-bed fall.
- Gardaí evidence includes neighbour CCTV charting the accused’s movements, phone records of calls and texts with the boy’s father, and searches for head injury and concussion on the morning in question.
- The court heard the accused told investigators she ‘snapped’ and remembered shaking the child and shouting at him to behave, while denying any intent to kill.
- The prosecution alleges the child was kept out of sight to conceal bruising in the days before his collapse; the woman’s identity is suppressed to protect a child witness and the trial could run up to five weeks.