Isabella Cisarova’s mother talks about attempted murder, suffering during her daughter’s attack

A mother has described to a court the moment her daughter allegedly attacked her with a sharp object, saying it “felt like pouring hot coffee over herself”.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allegedly punched and slashed in the throat in front of several onlookers on Cairns Esplanade on November 23, 2022.

Her daughter Isabella Aneta Cisarova, 22, appeared in the Supreme Court in Cairns where she pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted murder and was given an alternative charge of grievous bodily harm with intent.

Describing the alleged attack, the mother told the court she had just finished spending time with her two youngest children at a nearby playground when she noticed Ms Cisarova across the road.

“She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look at me very nicely,” the mother told the court, through an interpreter in her native Czech.

She set her phone to record mode and recalls being surprised when her daughter came up from behind and hit her in the back.

“And when you turned around to face her, what was she doing?” asked Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane.

The woman told the court she felt pain as she covered her face and neck with her hands and begged her daughter to stop.

She added that she could not recall at what point she realised Ms Cisarova was holding a gun, but she noticed the blade “hidden in her hand”.

“There was only a tiny bit of it sticking out,” she told the court.

The court heard that witnesses to the incident intervened and pulled Ms Cisarova away. At that point, her mother was already on the ground and noticed that her hands were covered in blood.

A house full of violence

Ms Cisarova’s relationship with her mother deteriorated significantly in 2017, when the family was still living in their native Czech Republic.

The court heard that Ms Cisarova left the family home to live with her paternal grandmother following a violent incident between her parents when her father was arrested while in possession of two loaded guns.

For the next few years, Ms Cisarova and her mother barely spoke to each other, but in 2022, after the family emigrated to Australia, they moved in together again.

They lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Cairns central business district with Ms Cisarova’s two younger siblings, her father and her paternal grandmother.

The court heard that Ms Cisarova’s mother left her home in September 2022, about 10 weeks before the alleged attack, to escape her 22-year relationship with her abusive and violent husband.

Her departure sparked legal action and about two weeks before the alleged attack, Ms Cisarova had tried to persuade her mother to return home, the court heard.

The mother described to the court the extent to which Ms Cisarova’s father had controlled her life throughout their relationship – limiting her access to money, destroying household appliances, preventing her from seeing friends and calling her insulting names.

A mother’s emotional letter

In April 2023, about five months after the alleged attack, the court heard testimony from Ms Cisarova’s mother, who wrote a letter to her daughter who was in prison.

In the letter, she wrote that she couldn’t stop thinking about what happened and was trying to understand why it happened.

The court heard her tell Ms Cisarowa that she regretted not leaving her “psychologically abusive” father earlier and that she had not been able to protect her from him.

Ms Cisarova’s mother burst into tears when defence lawyer Tim Grau finished questioning her about the letter she had signed “your mother.”

Mr. Grau asked her mother if she had told Ms. Cisarowa that her father “was always one step ahead of her” and that “I know he drove you to what you did.”

“Yes,” the mother replied.

The trial before Judge James Henry continues.