‘Mother’s remorse’: Protective mum turns birthday fury on daughters

The moment a mother went from protecting her daughters to a drunken rage that saw her assault them has been labelled as “perverse irony” by a southeast Queensland magistrate.

Generic image of a sad woman

An Ipswich mother of nine has faced sentence for assaulting her teenage daughters, who were trying to soothe her after a violent confrontation with her partner on her birthday.

The woman, 38, pleaded guilty in Ipswich Magistrate’s Court on October 14, 2022, to assault occasioning bodily harm (DV), two counts of common assault (DV), two counts of contravening a domestic violence order, public nuisance and obstructing police.

The court heard the woman had been celebrating her birthday with family last year, when her partner at the time walked in on the woman and her teenage daughter when they were in the bathroom in the early hours of the morning.

Defence lawyer Alan Phillips said this was “at the very least inappropriate”, and noted the partner was now in custody for “very serious” offences committed against the woman.

Magistrate Dennis Kinsella said the woman was “triggered” by the partner’s intrusion, and she pushed her partner out of the room and punched him.

The woman’s eldest son took her partner downstairs, while the teenage daughter in the bathroom tried to calm her down.

Crown prosecutor Ashleigh Wakefield said the woman, who was “extremely intoxicated”, then screamed that she would kill her partner and broke a dish, injuring her hand.

Another one of her teenage daughters tried to calm her down, before the woman ran downstairs and threw a bottle at her partner, which shattered.

Her son told her partner to leave, and he did, but the woman was still upset and ran outside.

One of the woman’s teenage daughters tried to pull her back off the road, but the woman grabbed her by the throat.

The daughter grabbed her back in turn and struggled against her mother, who threw her to the ground.

The woman returned inside, locking her children outside.

The children managed to get back inside and they argued for a time, before the woman grabbed the same daughter by the throat again, pushed her against a wall and held her there by the throat.

When the older sister intervened the woman then grabbed the older daughter by the chin, and pushed her head backwards until it hit the wall behind her, causing a laceration.

Ms Wakefield said the woman was taken to hospital, and was heard saying “I will slit the g*ddamn f**king motherf**ker‘s throat if he touches my daughter”.

She eventually needed to be restrained and sedated.

Ms Wakefield said “while I have no victim impact material to tender, the offending undoubtedly would have been a traumatic experience for the defendant’s children“.

Mr Phillips said the woman had a troubled childhood, was the mother of nine children, and struggled with her mental health.

“Words can’t adequately express the remorse she feels and the shame,” he said, noting the woman had been in tears throughout the proceedings and had pictures of her children printed out in front of her.

Mr Phillips said the woman had a limited criminal history, had been engaging in domestic violence counselling, and had actually started a course that would allow her to become a domestic violence counsellor once completed.

Mr Kinsella noted the woman’s relationship with her partner could “only be described as a mutually domestic violence relationship”, said the partner’s abuse was both physical and sexual, and noted that this gave some context to the woman’s “hypervigilant” reaction.

“It’s a perverse irony that in fact, while you were triggered by these protective feelings, what you did next was you effectively hurt your own children,” he said.

Mr Kinsella said her plea of guilty was indicative of “mother‘s remorse”.

He sentenced the woman to 10 months imprisonment, with immediate parole release, and two days of pre-sentence custody declared time-served.