A CANNABIS smoker repeatedly stabbed her?young daughter after hearing voices in her head, a court has?heard.
The mother attacked the girl with a kitchen knife while she lay in bed at their home in Woking on February 13 this year,?before being stopped by her teenage sons.
Emergency services attending the scene found the girl lying on?a sofa in the living room with her legs covered in blood.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had suffered a nervous breakdown before carrying out the attack.
She was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Monday (December 6)?to an 18-month community order after earlier pleading guilty to unlawful wounding.
The court heard there was no proven link between her cannabis intake and the attack.
Judge Christopher Critchlow took into account the fact she had been under stress when making the decision not to send?her to prison.
“You are now on medication and it seems you are now back to normal,” he said. “Your family want you back.
“You have had support from your children for the last?10 months, having got a good understanding of your illness."
The girl, who was taken to the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, suffered a total of seven wounds to her chest, right thigh and abdomen.
"No control"
Prosecutor Adrian Amer said the victim’s grandmother dialled 999 at 4.40am. When police arrived, they also found blood in the kitchen and bathroom of the house.
“Officers were in the kitchen with the mother, the grandmother and two of the children,” he said.
“They asked her what she did and she replied ‘I stabbed her’. At this point she was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and cautioned.”
Just before the attack, the victim described how her mother walked into her bedroom, left and then came back again and sat on the edge of her bed.
“She looked at her mother and asked her if she was alright,” Mr Amer said. “Her mother said she had something to tell her.
“She thought her mother was going to kill herself.”
The woman then told her daughter that “the boys” were plotting against her, while holding a knife in her right hand.
She then attacked her daughter on the bed before her sons entered the room, “rugby tackling” their mother away from the scene.
Defending, John Sellars said his client was suffering from depression at the time of the attack and?added she?had been?behaving strangely two weeks before the incident.
He said she had not smoked any cannabis since she was arrested.
“I would say that my client had no control over her actions at that time,” he said.
“My submission is that it was a build up of things. There can be no other explanation for what she did other than mental illness.”
The woman will receive mental health treatment and supervision as part of the community order.
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