A MOTHER has been accused of constantly torturing her four children leaving them with fractured hands and black eyes, according to a prosecution witness.
The battered bairns were also seen by shocked relatives covered in bruises when they visited during the holy month of Ramadan, the High Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Details of despair were shared during the trial of a Bahraini mother and her teenage lover who allegedly brutally assaulted her four children, leaving one baby crippled for life.
The 29-year-old woman appeared at court yesterday where she previously denied assault and causing a permanent disability.
Charges
Her 18-year-old Bahraini boyfriend, who the court heard provided free food to her children following their father’s death, is alleged to have tortured them too. He also denies the charges.
The defendants are accused of having regularly beaten four children – two boys and two girls – whose ages range from 10 months to six years.
They are said to have nearly killed the youngest child on June 14 after the male defendant spun the boy in the air because he would not stop crying.
The baby was then taken to a private hospital in Manama with fractures to his head, hands and chest before being placed on life support by the medical team.
The woman’s sister-in-law described how the ‘heartless’ mother would always bring her children with bruises and black eyes to her home.
“Although I suspected her of torturing her children she would say that they hit each other,” the 45-year-old Bahraini woman told a leading judge yesterday.
“I would tell her to take them to a hospital but she didn’t care.
“I would see them in tears and having black eyes when they came to my house for Iftar meals in Ramadan.
“I also saw her beating them a couple of times aggressively when they were over at my house.
“This heartless woman should get punished for torturing her children.”
The mother’s neighbour described how he rushed the child to hospital. “The mother knocked at my front door and said that her son was dying,” the 28-year-old Bahraini told judges.
“Her 10-month-old son was unconscious and she said that she found him in that state. I then rushed them to a hospital.”
The 28-year-old prosecution witness said that the defendant’s six-year-old son had confided to him just a few days before the incident that the male defendant had been torturing him.
“I was shocked because one of the mother’s children (aged six) told me that the 18-year-old defendant would assault him and his siblings,” he added.
“He also told me that his mother did nothing about it.”
As reported earlier in the GDN, a medical report said that it was a ‘miracle’ that the baby survived from his injuries although medics fear that the infant will likely be crippled for life, the court was told.
The defendants pinned the blame on each other, while the mother insisted that her co-defendant attacked her baby because he was crying.
Her six-year-old son previously described the horrors of how his mother and boyfriend, who he called ‘uncle’, would torture him and his siblings on a daily basis.
The trial has been adjourned until Sunday for review.
noorz@gdn.com.bh
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