A mother has been charged and will face court in a bedside hearing after she allegedly attacked her three children as they slept, stabbing them multiple times in the family home.
The 47-year-old woman is under police guard in hospital on suspicion she was trying to kill the children – aged 10, 13 and 16 – on Monday.
She has been charged with three counts of cause wounding/grievous bodily harm with intent to murder and is due to appear in Parramatta local court via a bedside hearing on Tuesday.
The children were expected to survive their injuries but “time will tell” how the psychological scars heal, police said.
Their mother allegedly turned the knife on herself following the early morning incident.
“Until we have an opportunity to speak to her, we won’t know what her intent was,” Det Supt Naomi Moore told reporters.
“But we’re certainly taking it as a potential attempted murder.”
The father and the children – one of whom has paraplegia – were all in their bedrooms of the family home at Baulkham Hills during the attack, police said.
Police said a “household” knife had been seized inside the home.
The incident, which woke the father, was “completely unexpected”.
A 10-year-old boy was stabbed twice, a 13-year-old girl three times, and their older sister, 16, had one stab wound and a number of lacerations, police said.
Their mother had three stab wounds to the abdomen, believed to be self-inflicted.
Paramedics treated all four before taking them to hospital.
