A Perth mother-from-hell who carried out a 20-year campaign of violent abuse against her daughters collapsed in the dock as she was jailed for two years.
The 64-year-old laughed as she broke her daughter’s arm by hurling her against a wall and refused to take her to hospital because she was watching soap operas on television, Perth Sheriff Court heard.
The unrepentant pensioner claimed she only abused the girls because she had a difficult childhood herself, and complained ‘I’ll lose my home’ after being told she was being sent to prison.
Sheriff William Wood told her: “You knew fine well the way you were dealing with your daughters was wrong and not something you wished to do in front of other people.
“I have to take account of the injuries caused. It is fair to say children who are treated this way will not be unscarred. This conduct took place over a period of some 20 years.
“These girls must have been terrified at times to return home. This conduct was reprehensible as they were entitled to look to you for love, support and protection.
The sheriff added: “The scale and duration of the misconduct on your part requires a custodial sentence to be imposed. I hope you take the time to reflect on the effect of your conduct on your daughters.”
Picked up by her ankles
The woman’s own solicitor said she had been responsible for a “horrendous catalogue” of behaviour towards her daughters over two decades.
The court was told that the woman battered a toddler for squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube in one incident.
She broke her daughter’s arm by picking her up by the ankles and swinging her round before launching her approximately ten feet across a room.
Fiscal depute Stewart Hamilton said: “She grabbed hold of the complainer and turned her upside down. She swung her from side-to-side, laughing as she did this.
“This lasted approximately ten seconds before she threw her two to three metres across the room. She crash landed on her right arm and bashed her head off a coffee table.”
Mr Hamilton said: “She immediately felt pain in her arm, describing it as agony. She was howling in pain. She refused to take her to hospital, saying she wanted to watch her TV programmes first.
“A few hours later she was taken to the hospital. X-rays showed a fractured right arm.”
The court was told the girl was too scared to tell medical staff the truth.
‘Everyone lashes out sometimes’
Solicitor David Sinclair, defending, said his client denied waiting to watch ‘soap operas’ and said she wanted time to consider what she should do.
The woman also smashed up her daughters’ room as they slept and caused one of the children to cut her feet walking across broken glass. The two victims are now in their early-30s and mid-20s.
The court was told that when she was arrested last year, she told police: “Everyone lashes out sometimes. I love my girls.”
Mr Sinclair said: “Where we are in society now is very different to where we were 20 years ago. It is a situation where it has been perpetrated through the generations.”
Child slapped ‘black and blue’
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted striking her older daughter with a belt, pulling her hair and hitting her face on various occasions from her third birthday in 1991 until 2001.
She also admitted attacking and severely injuring her younger daughter from her birth in the mid-1990s until 2011. She admitted holding her upside down, shaking her, hitting her head and body and throwing her across a room.
She admitted culpably and recklessly smashing up a bedroom in 2002 and injuring the younger girl by making her walk across the broken glass.
Mr Hamilton said: “The older girl recalls being three years old when she was standing in the bathroom brushing her teeth and squeezed from the middle of the tube.
“The accused became angry and held up the tube to show what she had done, before slapping her to the face. She recalls the slap being sore and it caused her to cry.”
He said the woman took her daughter to use a public phone the following day to tell nursery she was “ill” and the child saw her black and blue face in a shop mirror.
‘Growling noises’
The mother met a man at a single parent group and the violence slowed down because she did not do anything in front of her partner. He left a while later and moved to England.
“She would lose her temper and lose control. One girl woke up and saw her baby sister being held upside down by the ankles. She saw her mother with a screwed up face, making growling noises at herself in the mirror.”
The younger sibling said her first memory was of being three years old and being slapped as a “life lesson” which was aimed at teaching her not to hit people.
The court heard that one girl began to fight back in her teens and eventually the sisters revealed the full catalogue of abuse to their mother’s ex-partner. It was 2020 before the full story was reported to police.
