A foster mother has told a child abuse trial that when she took in one of the male complainants into her home, he did not know how to use a knife and fork and had almost no teeth.
The woman was giving evidence in the trial of three men and three women. The charges against a fourth woman – the children’s grandmother – were withdrawn on Tuesday by direction of the trial judge.
The remaining six accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, include the parents, aunts and uncles of the three main child complainants. The accused range in ages from 27 to 57 and live in various locations in Munster.
There are extensive reporting restrictions in place in the case to protect the welfare of the child complainants.
The Central Criminal Court heard that both parents are also accused of wilfully neglecting two of their younger children.
The woman told Bernard Condon SC, prosecuting, that she took the child into her home after she got a call from Tusla and he arrived with a social worker.
She said he came with just his school bag. “I could not get over how he was at the table. He did not know what to with a knife and fork. We thought it was his nerves,” the woman said.
She said his clothes and shoes were dirt. “He didn’t have much teeth. When I showed him his toothbrush he just didn’t know how to use it.”
The woman said the child also had a lot of old looking scrapes on his back and described him as “quiet and shy”. She brought him to her GP to check the marks on his back and brought him to the barber for a haircut. He said he had never been to a barber before.
She said they went shopping because he had no clothes and the child was “all excited”.
New clothes
He met his other siblings while out shopping that day and the woman became emotional on the stand as she described him saying “I hope they got new clothes as well.”
The woman said food was “massive” to the child. He could not understand how her presses were full of food and the “weekly shop was massive for him”.
She said he was a very compliant child who was eager to please, “almost too much.”
“If you told him to sit on a chair he would sit on a chair”.
She said he had access to his family in the early days. He was anxious at the start. She said the social worker would tell her the child was bold at the visit but she never witnessed any bad behaviour from him herself.
The woman told the jury that in July 2017 the child first made disclosures about things that occurred in his previous home and the Garda was contacted. That August, the child went missing and there was a search for him. When he was found, he was wearing a strange jumper that was not his. “I brought him home. He was so hungry and dirty.”
She said after that he was afraid to leave the house alone and always checked if the house alarm was set at night.
The woman agreed with Dean Kelly SC, for the child’s mother, that the boy sometimes told lies but said it was only minor things, like a normal child.
A second foster parent who took a younger child in the family described him as being “scared and nervous” and said he cried silent tears. She said she could see the tears but no sound and she had never witnessed this before. He did not speak for the first few days in her home.
She said the child would not eat food at the table and they had to leave it on low tables or on a chair in his room. She described the boy as having a very poor appetite.
This witness said this boy was also very dirty and had hardly any teeth. He was too scared to be washed and it was three days before he would allow them to wash him. He settled after about a week and started school.
The woman said the child never spoke about his parents. He left a few months later so he could live with another sibling.
The trial continues.