A mother who said she “can’t talk properly” because her adult son broke her nose and fractured her jaw got an interim barring order against him.
“I love him so much, but he can’t be doing this to his mother. I’m terrified. I have to stay alive for my little boy,” the distressed woman told the emergency domestic violence court at Dolphin House in Dublin.
Her older son, aged in his twenties, turned up at her new house in recent weeks and beat her, breaking her nose and fracturing her jawbone, she said.
She was taken to hospital. Her son is still in her house and she wants him removed from there, she said. Her son also tried to attack her partner, she said.
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She previously obtained a barring order against her son and this time wanted a three-year barring order, she said. “I’ve done all I can for him, I love him to bits but, to break your mother’s nose for nothing...” she said, her voice breaking.
Judge Vincent Deane said he could only grant an interim barring order at this stage, which would mean the gardaí would remove her son from the house.
He asked the woman to return to court in January when her application for a full barring order will be heard. Her son is entitled to attend that hearing and may either consent to, or oppose, her application.
The woman said neither she nor her partner can read and asked the judge to explain how many days to count before January 6th when the case returns to court. The judge did so.
The woman and her partner, who had accompanied her to court, thanked the judge and wished him happy Christmas. Returning the greeting, he said: “I hope’s it’s a peaceful one.”
The woman was among several applicants who came before the judge on Tuesday seeking orders ex parte (one side only represented) under the Domestic Violence Act.
To mark Christmas week staff at Dolphin House provided complimentary tea and coffee and pastries to applicants as they waited for their cases to be called.
In a different case, a woman obtained a protection order against her ex partner whom she alleged persistently phones and messages her that he will break into her home and kill her and her husband.
Her ex is the father of one of her children, there are no issues about his access to the child but his behaviour had left the child scared and crying, she said.
She previously got a protection order against another man with whom she was in a relationship before getting involved with her ex, she said. “It was very bad. Now I’m going through the same thing again.”
In another application, a distressed woman in her sixties sought a protection order against her father, aged in his nineties. She was the carer for both parents for years, her mother had died not long ago and her father recently had had her locked out of the family home after a “silly argument” over her putting his clothes in his bedroom during which they had pushed each other. “He’s a very hard man to get on with at the best of times,” she said.
When the judge queried whether a protection order was required given her father’s age, she said he is a “big man” who weighs more than her and has no mobility issues. She said she has her own apartment but it is currently let and not available to her until late January. She has been unable to retrieve her possessions due to being locked out, she said.
The judge noted the woman’s father, who was accompanied to court by her sister, had last week obtained a protection order ex parte against the woman.
Noting the father’s protection order was made returnable to February, the judge listed the woman’s summons seeking a protection order on that date, saying both matters would be heard together.
She had not met the threshold for an emergency protection order to be made at this stage, he told the woman. Such an order would not assist her in returning to the family home or getting her possessions from there, he said.
