A woman who alleged she has suffered violence and coercive control by her husband over years, including punching and kicking her and threatening to murder her, got an interim barring order.
The tearful woman told the emergency domestic violence court at Dolphin House, Dublin, she fled with her children to a “safe house” run by a domestic violence support agency because she feels unsafe in the family home.
Her husband threatened to murder her and to burn the house with her and their children in it, he sleeps with a baseball bat beside the bed and has “sharp weapons”, she said. A worried family member had reported the situation to Tusla, she added.
She was “constantly belittled, berated and blamed” by her husband “for anything that goes wrong”, she and the children walked “on eggshells” around him and spent most time in their bedrooms because they felt “vulnerable” in other rooms. She prepared “quick”, instead of more nutritious, meals for the children to get out of the kitchen quickly. Her older children had not spoken to their father for years “due to his temper and outbursts”.
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He slammed doors into her stomach during one pregnancy, saying she should have it aborted, she said. Her bedroom door was taken off its hinges and the children’s bedroom wall was kicked through.
She had awoken on occasions to the smell of burning, finding food “cremated” in the oven, the front door wide open and her husband, who drank a lot, asleep on the couch.
Judge Gerard Furlong, noting the woman previously got orders under the Domestic Violence Act going back to 2016, granted an interim barring order and told her she had the additional option of pursuing a criminal prosecution.
The ex parte (one side only represented) application was among up to 20 made to the court on Friday.
A woman who said her former partner recently received a suspended sentence for assaulting her but she is “afraid it is starting up again” and got a protection order.
She had suffered a lot of abuse, physically and mentally, during their relationship and after it ended, she said. He had broken into her house, hit and punched her, followed her around the streets harassing her and abused her via calls and texts.
Another woman, accompanied by her adult son, said she suffered coercive control and unfaithfulness before her husband who moved out of their home more than 10 years ago and moved in with another woman. That relationship later ended, he had returned to the family home in recent years and had been abusive to her many times, she said.
He had threatened to burn down the house and smashed a window. Following a recent incident when he was “extremely abusive”, she had fled the house in fear.
Some applications were by parents against their adult children, including one by a mother who said her adult son is “frightening me every day”, saying things like , “you want me to kill you, don’t you?”.
She got an interim barring order ex parte last week but he did not attend court when the matter returned on Friday. She sought, and was granted, a three-year barring order.
The woman, who got other orders against her son over the last five years, said he screams abuse at her for hours and smashes up her home. He smashed her phone and asked her: “Who will you ring now?”
After he told her in recent days he would “leave me in a pool of my own blood”, she had him put out of the house and changed the locks, she said. “I don’t want him back.” When the judge asked about any underlying issues, she said her son had “given up smoking weed” and is “not on anything”.
A father who alleged his adult daughter has assaulted him and turns up at his home frequently, demanding money, food and cigarettes, got a protection order against her. He had withdrawn a previous protection application last month after being told by mental health services she would get treatment but she had not, he said.
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