Man jailed after abandoning two-year-old daughter on roadside at 5am

A man has been jailed after abandoning his two-year-old child in a semi-dressed state at 5am on the side of a public road in Letterkenny.

The man was handed a four-year prison sentence, the final 12 months of which was suspended, when he appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court.

Aged his 20s, the man cannot be named due to legal reasons in order to prevent the child from being identified.

Judge John Aylmer said that the incident, in August 2020, exposed the toddler to a ‘very significant risk of death or injury’. He said the abandonment of the girl in the cold ‘exposed the infant to extreme danger of all kinds’.

The man sent a picture of the title girl at the roadside wearing a coat, no trousers and no shoes to her mother - his ex-partner - and another individual. His ex-partner was out socialising and the accused became jealous when she would not disclose her location.

Sergeant Frank McDaid told Ms Patricia McLaughlin BL, prosecuting, that two men were walking home from a house party at 5am when they heard what they believed to be a young child crying.

They found a little girl who was described as being ‘visibly upset’ on the footpath at the entrance to a construction site. The girl was wearing a onesie and her legs were bare. She had no shoes on and was very cold.

The men began knocking on doors in an attempt to find the girl’s home. After around 20 minutes, they called Gardai, who took the child. Soon after, the girl’s mother contacted Letterkenny Garda Station and told them that her ex-partner had called her 30 times.

The woman became concerned when the man sent her a message threatening her that if she didn’t tell him where she was that he would leave the child ‘at the top of the road’.

The man was interviewed four times and admitted to Gardai that he had gone to another location and woke his daughter from her sleep before leaving her at the roadside. He also admitted taking a photo, which he sent to two people, including the child’s mother.

Judge John Aylmer

Judge Aylmer said the fact that the child was abandoned for a period of around two minutes was not in ease of the defendant.

“That is entirely fortuitous,” he said, placing the incident at the high end of such offending. “That doesn’t benefit the accused.”

The child’s mother, in a victim impact statement which was read to the court, said her ex-partner was very aggressive towards her on the night in question and called her 30 times in the space of an hour.

She said a half-bottle of cold milk was found beside her daughter when she was located. The woman said that her daughter now ‘struggles to be around most people’. The girl has become scared of cars and won’t sleep in her own bed.

“It was a really traumatic time,” the woman said.

Ms Fiona Crawford BL, barrister for the accused, said her client ‘got himself into a temper about his ex-partner’. The man admitted to using the child ‘as a pawn in a jealous row’, Ms Crawford said.

While the man hasn’t seen his daughter since the incident in August 2020, Ms Crawford said he hoped to be permitted access again.

Ms Crawford said: “He realises the dangers of what could have happened and he is eternally grateful to the two gentlemen, who found his daughter and saved her life.

“His actions were totally selfish. He was disgusted and ashamed of himself.”

The offence carries a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment and Judge Aylmer said the case merited a starting point of a five-year prison sentence before mitigating factors were taken into account.

The man was fully co-operative and made full admissions, the court heard. The accused man was suffering from depression at the time, but was not taking prescribed medication. He noted that the defendant had significant support from his family and has weaned himself off an addiction to abusive drugs.

In a report prepared for the court, the Probation Service said the man’s expressions of remorse appeared to be very genuine.

Judge Aylmer said the man ‘acted out of temper for purely selfish reasons’.

“It was done with a desire to exercise control over his partner,” Judge Aylmer said. “It involved a huge beech of trust. It was done in a fairly premeditated fashion as there had been a threat made around a half-an-hour earlier and it required a 15-minute drive from his home to the location where he left the child on the side of the road.”

Judge Aylmer reduced the sentence to one of four years imprisonment. The final 12 months of the sentence were suspended upon the accused entering into a bond of €100 to keep the peace and be of good behavior for 12 months following his release from prison.

The accused, who has one previous conviction for possession of a controlled drug, is to remain free of alcohol and unprescribed drugs during that period and will be placed under the supervision of the Probation Service.

He was ordered to comply with all directions of the Probation Service, must attend the MOVE programme in Sligo and keep the Probation Service informed of any partner he forms a relationship with during the same period.

The man showed no emotion as he was led away by a prison officer.