Judge orders Garda update on investigation of father accused of abuse

Gardaí have been told by a Family Law Court judge that if are going to prosecute a father accused of stripping and flogging three small children, they should get on with it.

Judge Mary Larkin made her comment at the family law court as she granted an application to Tusla, the Child and Family Agency (CFA) to extend by three months an interim care order for the three children concerned.

Judge Larkin has ordered that Gardaí provide an update on their investigation into the man at the next court date in September.

Judge Larkin stated that by that date the children will have been in Tusla care for one year.

Judge Larkin stated she expects at this stage the Garda file to be going to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for directions.

Judge Larkin stated: “The children’s lives are up in the air and that has to be a concern to the parents and everyone here.

She commented: “If they are going to prosecute then they should get on with it.”

Judge Larkin stated: “If the matter goes to hearing the children will be put in a position where they will be asked to give evidence and they are traumatic events and I would like to know what is happening there.”

Last September, Judge Larkin granted the original interim order to Tusla to remove the children from their parents care after hearing allegations that the children were stripped and flogged by their father at home.

Judge Larkin made the order after a Childcare Support Co-Ordinator at a local refuge told the court how the couple’s six year old boy told her “My Dad flogs me with a wire and I have to take my trousers off and it still hurts”.

On the latest Tusla application to extend the interim care order for the three, the allocated Tusla care worker in the case stated that the father “is in denial over the past”.

She stated that Tusla has not carried out a parental capacity assessment on the father as they have been advised by Gardaí that it may compromise the Garda investigation into the allegations.

She confirmed that the father has made a statement to Gardaí and that the three children have been interviewed by Garda specialist interviewers.

In July of last year, the mother of the three children gave sworn evidence in court of the flogging and stripping where she secured a Protection Order against her husband who is father to two of the children.

However, two months later in September 2020 the woman told Judge Larkin that what she stated in July and what the children told social workers concerning the physical abuse by her husband “is all lies”.

In sworn evidence before a previous interim care order hearing, the father said:

“Everything they said about me is all lies from the beginning. I love my children and I wouldn’t do anything to them. I would never hurt my children.”