A woman who says she is in fear of her ex partner after he allegedly did “horrible things” to her has obtained a protection order.
An armed plain-clothes garda accompanied the woman to the emergency domestic violence court in Dolphin House, Dublin, this week and told Judge Gerard Furlong she believed the man’s threats are “real”.
The woman said the man has followed her on the streets, smashed up her home and sent abusive text messages.
He did horrible things to her in the past, she said, and when it “got really bad” she had to move house with their baby, who he does not see.
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“It’s not about his baby, it’s about me,” the woman said.
Describing the situation as “very serious”, the judge granted a protection order.
In another case, a mother who came into court on crutches said her adult son, aged in his 30s, had flung her across a room in her home, leaving her with a broken leg.
The woman previously got an interim barring order on an ex parte basis (one side represented in court) against her son. When her case came back to court on Thursday, he did not attend and the woman sought a full barring order.
“I just want to be in a safe place in my house,” she said, adding that her son had “lost his mind” and was recently showing “escalating intimidating controlling behaviour”.
Earlier in October, she said, he pushed her on to a bed and put his hands around her neck. In a more recent incident, she said he repeatedly slapped her on the head, banged her head against the window and then flung her across the room, causing the broken leg.
When the judge indicated he would grant the maximum three-year barring order, the woman asked for two years and said she wanted the choice to retain contact with her son.
The judge granted a two-year order on that basis and told her she could reapply to the court at any time if the circumstances changed.
In another case, an interim barring order was granted to a woman who said her husband kicked her between the legs, punched her on the head several times and said he “will kill me”.
She said her husband is an alcoholic who becomes very violent when drinking. The woman has been in several refuges, is concerned for her young son and does not want to leave home again.
Judge Furlong, who noted the woman had previously made but had not pursued similar applications, said he hoped she would be in court when the matter was due back on November 10th. She said she would.
The cases were among about 20 applications, mostly brought ex parte, before the judge during Thursday’s sitting.
A woman who said she fears for her life due to her estranged husband’s behaviour got a protection order. He breached an undertaking not to put her in fear and his behaviour is affecting her mental health and daily life, she said.
The woman said he constantly accuses her of having affairs with other men and used “cultural and social” pressures to justify his behaviour. He had told her she had come to Ireland as a bride and will go back to their native country “in a white coffin”, she said.
A weeping woman who said she is now three weeks in a domestic violence refuge was granted a protection order against her “very controlling” husband.
She fled to her family in England because of his behaviour, including controlling her sleeping times and preventing her having contact with her family and friends, she said.
She is from the Travelling community and he “forced” her to come back, but she was only here three days when she fled to the refuge. Her husband knows she is there and is threatening anyone who helps her, she said.
A separated woman sharing a house with her husband got a protection order after saying she did not feel safe after a recent incident where she believed he came into her bedroom and put a pillow over her head.
She said she struggled to breathe and may have blacked out. She did not see her husband in the room but was sure it was him, she said.
There was an earlier incident where he tried to strangle her but he claimed it was some kind of sleep disorder, she said. A similar incident happened with his previous wife and he agreed to attend a sleep violence clinic, she said.
An elderly woman, who was accompanied into court by two gardaí, got an interim barring order against her adult son, aged in his 50s.
He shouted at her in her home when he was looking for tablets he had bought on the street and later took two knives out of a drawer and threatened to kill her and her adult granddaughter when she told him she was calling gardaí, she said.
When gardaí arrived, including members of the armed response unit, he left and she refused to let him in when he returned later.
A father who said he is suffering serious physical and verbal abuse from his son “nearly every day” got an emergency safety order.
His son, aged in his 20s, is controlling everything in the house, runs up drug debts and “expects me to pay them”, and contributes nothing to the household costs, he said.
“I’ve had enough. I don’t know what to do with him, I’m sick to the back teeth of him.”
