Galway Bay fm newsroom – The sentence hearing of a woman who beat and neglected her children while they were living in the west of Ireland between 2006 and 2011 is underway.
The father of two of her children is also before Galway Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to five counts of neglect.
The pair, who can t be named to protect the identities of the children, lived at various addresses in the west during the five years leading up to 2011.
She has nine children. She had two of them, a boy and a girl, with her co-accused who pleaded guilty to five counts of neglect last December.
Following a nine-day trial the following month, she was convicted of 29 counts and acquitted on the remaining 13.
Among the offences she was convicted of include: holding her daughter s head underwater in the kitchen sink and trying to knock two of her sons down after they spilt milkshakes in the back of her car.
The children were regularly beaten, were malnourished and would often be left in the care of strangers for several days at a time.
As part of his mitigation, the court heard the man used to tell the children to fake cry and pretend he was beating them to appease their mother.
Victim Impact Statements are due to be read out shortly.