A woman accused of the murder of a four-year-old boy had assaulted him previously and her behaviour towards him escalated in the weeks before his death, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
The woman has admitted the manslaughter of the boy - who was her partner's child - in 2021, but denies murdering him.
She cannot be named due to legislation protecting the identity of child witnesses in criminal proceedings.
The court heard that the mother of the child in this case, was suffering from some mental health issues and the boy went to live with his father and the accused woman.
Prosecuting counsel Anne Rowland told the jury that the child was taken to hospital after a call to 999 from the father saying the boy had fallen from the top bunk in his bedroom and was unconscious.
Paramedics found the boy lying in the foetal position in the bedroom, unconscious.
They noticed immediately that the child had a lot of bruises of different colours on his body, suggesting they had been caused at different times.
Concerns were also raised by doctors at the hospital who noticed he had a black eye.
The jury heard the intensive care consultant who examined the boy will give evidence that the bruising on his body was very unusual.
She immediately suspected the bruises were not caused accidentally as they were not in places you would accidentally hurt yourself.
Bleeds were found in two parts of his brain and his eyes did not react to light.
The jury will hear that such serious injuries could not have been caused by falling from a bunk bed.
The child was too ill to transfer to hospital in Dublin until it became clear he would not recover.
At that stage he was transferred to Temple Street children's hospital to allow his parents to spend a last 24 hours with him before he was taken off the machines which were keeping him alive.
The jury was told they will hear the post-mortem examination showed he died due to a traumatic head injury in association with blunt force trauma to his abdomen.
His liver was lacerated and the court heard there would be evidence his brain injury had been caused by some kind of shaking combined with contact with a flat surface.
The accused woman told gardai the child was "bold and cheeky".
She said he used to be "put on the bold step" but for the previous month he had been grounded and sent to his room a lot.
When he was grounded he was not allowed downstairs and would have to sit on the floor of his room.
He had not been allowed to come down for a number of family birthdays.
She claimed that on the morning he was hospitalised, his father was at work, she said she heard a bang and went upstairs to find him unconscious.
She also initially claimed she did not use a mobile phone but gave her phone to gardaí a number of days later.
Ms Rowland told the court gardaí found 11 messages and ten voice calls between the woman and her partner on the morning the boy was hurt.
They also obtained CCTV footage from a neighbour's house.
Ms Rowland told the jury the footage showed a figure they could infer to be the woman going upstairs every fifteen minutes at one stage.
After staying upstairs for 17 minutes, she then googled "Why is it bad if you bang your head and go to sleep" and also searched for concussion.
She texted her partner a number of times, including a text telling him he should not have left and he knew that.
Ms Rowland told the eight men and four women on the jury they would hear evidence from the child's uncle that he was supposed to have regular video calls with the child but most of them were audio only and he was frequently told he could not talk to the child because he was being bold.
Other people had noticed bruises on the child's face.
A friend said she had brought chocolate for the child but was told she could not give it to him because he was bold.
A child who was visiting the house will say he saw the woman slap the child because he did not finish his dinner and was crying that he did not want it.
On another occasion, he saw the child being dragged upstairs after the woman slapped him for taking something off another child.
The accused woman later told gardaí that she had snapped and remembered shaking the child on the morning in question and screaming at him to behave but that she blanked out and did not remember hitting him.
She said she had started shaking him after he was cheeky to her.
She said he looked shocked and was crying and she was nearly sure he had his two feet off the ground.
She told them she found him unconscious and had tried to rouse him by putting water on him. She said had not meant to kill him.
Ms Rowland said the prosecution case was that the woman had assaulted the child on prior occasions and caused injuries to him.
She said the woman's behaviour towards the child had escalated.
She had told someone she kicked him on the previous night although she later denied this, and on the morning in question, Ms Rowland said she could only have intended to cause him serious injuries, at a minimum.
The woman has pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and has admitted manslaughter, but she denies intending to kill the child and has pleaded not guilty to murder.
The trial is expected to last up to five weeks.
