A woman who alleged her adult daughter assaulted her in her home and forged her signature to steal her money as she recovers from a stroke has secured an interim barring order.
The woman was in a wheelchair and accompanied by a key worker when she sought the order ex-parte (one side only represented) at Dublin’s domestic violence family court.
Her daughter, now in her late 30s, has had drug issues since she was 18, the woman told Judge Michael Ramsey. Her daughter had been homeless for several years before she returned some months ago to the house where her mother lives alone.
Her daughter said she was moving back to “look after me”, the woman said, but had forged her signature to get social welfare payments and hit her several times. She was “living in fear” of her daughter who had refused her requests to leave.
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The woman was one of four parents who separately sought protection or barring orders against their adult children from the judge during a one-day sitting.
One woman who alleged her daughter was in a drug-induced psychosis and that her “head is gone from the drugs” said she previously had had her daughter detained involuntarily under the Mental Health Act but her estranged husband went to tribunals to secure her release. The woman said her daughter had come into a hospital where the woman was receiving treatment and gardaí had to be called.
She previously obtained a protection order against her daughter but it expires next week and she wanted a barring order, she said.
The judge said that, because the daughter did not live with her mother, he could not make that order but the woman could apply next week to renew the protection order.
Fifteen separate ex-parte applications were brought by women for protection or barring orders against their husbands, partners or ex-husbands and ex-partners. Some women were accompanied by domestic violence support workers from Tusla or nongovernmental organisations.
One woman alleged her ex-partner pepper-sprayed and assaulted her in her home while trying to take their young child from her arms. He eventually seized the child and fled from her home but was arrested by gardaí, she alleged.
Another woman, a mother of two young children, said her former partner had drug addiction issues and was made subject of a probation order with stipulations after being convicted of robbery and battery but that was “not enough to keep us safe”. She had approached the man’s probation officer about the alleged breaches but he was “quite blasé” about them, she said.
The robbery and battery occurred when she was heavily pregnant and had booked anonymously into hospital but he still managed to get access to her and stole her handbag and trashed her property, she said.
She fled to another country but he breached a barring order after she returned and tried to take one of the children, she said. “It took us four years to find a property where he does not know the address.”
There are criminal court proceedings against him and he impeded her access to the Criminal Courts of Justice building when she sought to attend there, she said.
Judge Ramsey granted her a protection order.
Another woman secured a protection order after telling the judge her former partner was released from prison in recent months and she felt unsafe. She had received “constant threats” over the previous three months and believed he is mentally unstable and using drugs, she said.
He came to her home in recent days and banged on her windows and had said he would go to their child’s school, she said.
The protection orders granted were returned to dates in November, when the respondents are entitled to apply to have them lifted.
Another application by a woman for full barring orders against her husband and their adolescent son arising from the husband’s alleged daily drinking and son’s suspected involvement in drugs, was adjourned for a week to allow both men to get legal representation.
Interim barring orders secured by the woman last week continue pending further order.
The woman said she and her other children are living with a relative because they are “terrified” at their own home for reasons including unknown men banging on their door demanding to see her son. Her husband drinks daily, is not contributing financially to the household, and is “aggressive and intimidating” towards her, she said.
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