Mother gets three-year barring order against adult son

Woman tells hearing that son has drug problems and comes to her house ‘at all hours’

The woman said she did not want her son coming to her house at all.
The woman said she did not want her son coming to her house at all.

A woman has secured a three-year barring order against her adult son at Dublin District Court. The woman told the family court hearing on Monday that her son has drug problems and he comes up to her house “at all hours” upsetting his children, who live with her.

The woman said her son can be aggressive and she is afraid of him at times. She said her son called to her house at 3.40am one night and he is “always looking for money”. She said her son was bringing people to her home that she didn’t know.

The woman said she did not want her son coming to her house at all and that arrangements could be made for him to see his children.

The woman’s son told the court he never puts his mother in fear. He agreed he had shown up late at night but that it was just to use her phone, “not to cause trouble”.

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“When she asks me to leave, I leave,” he told the court.

The man said he had brought a woman to his mother’s home on one occasion adding “that was it . . . the girl I brought up wasn’t on drugs”.

“She’s [my mother] afraid trouble will follow me up to her house, but I wouldn’t bring trouble,” he said.

The court heard the woman had previously secured a five-year safety order against her son and that she was granted an interim barring order before Christmas.

Judge Patricia Harney granted a three-year barring order against her son. A barring order excludes the man from her home and from carrying out violence or threats of violence, and from watching or being near the home.

‘Home wrecker’

In a separate case, a woman was granted a protection order against her former partner on an ex parte (one side only represented) basis. The woman said her former partner smashed one of her watches in front of her children and that he is verbally abusive, calling her a “home wrecker” and “a tramp”.

The woman told the court she and her partner had recently split and that they had agreed they would be civil to each other until they had sorted out living arrangements.

The woman said, however, that “things are getting nasty”. She said her former partner had called her a “tramp” in front of her children and that she had found weed in the home and called gardaí on him.

The woman said on a separate occasion the man had gotten “really up in my face” and that he is name calling “morning, noon and night”.

The woman said her former partner had also threatened that his sister would "kill me stone dead". Judge Harney granted the woman a protection order which prohibits the man from using or threatening to use violence. A full hearing, which the man is expected to attend, was set for a later date.

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns is a reporter for The Irish Times