A man in his 70s has admitted in court that he followed his wife to a dance after receiving a mystery call that she was going home in vans.
At a Family District Court in the west, solicitor for the man, Colum Doherty told the woman "your husband has concerns that you travel in the back of a van with another man".
The woman denied this, stating she was getting a lift home to save the price of a taxi and accused her husband of stalking her.
The woman, in her 60s, made her claim during an unsuccessful application for a Safety Order against her husband of more than 40 years.
In evidence, the woman said her husband used to turn off the ESB connection to the home to prevent her listening to the radio, and turn off the TV when she was watching her favourite soap operas, Fair City, Home and Away and Eastenders. This was denied by the man in evidence.
The couple has been separated for the past seven years but are still living in the same house.
Explaining why he followed his wife to the dance, the man said: “I got a phone call one night and it was from a woman and it was a faint voice and she said ‘you would want to go down and see what your wife is doing, she is going home in vans’.”
He said: “That was the end of the conversation, it was a private number. I went to the hotel and I was there a half an hour before it was over. She came out and went into the back of a van that had no safety belt, no nothing and she was put into it like a sack of spuds or a bag of coal.”
On turning off the ESB, the man said: “She keeps her room locked full time. There has been no radio in the kitchen for the past seven years and I can’t turn off something that it is not there - it is locked in the room.”
The man added: "I have tried to do mediation to save the marriage several times with different solicitors but she is like Maggie Thatcher, it is 'no, no, no, everything is out'."
Flash point
The woman was bringing the Safety Order application after an alleged recent flashpoint between the couple on the street in a town.
The woman said that she was going to visit by bus a relative in a local town and her husband approached her and told her that she was “an effing whore and all sorts of rude words”.
She told the court: “It made me feel awful ashamed. I was afraid of him.”
Mr Doherty said his client doesn’t like seeing his wife going off in the bus.
In reply, she said: “I have a free pass and I am not making enough use of it.”
In evidence, the man denied verbally abusing his wife. He said: “I have never raised my voice to her. I am not one for roaring and shouting.”
The man told the court: “She never tells you when she is leaving. She just walks out the door and she doesn’t care if you like or don’t like it.”
Solicitor for the woman, Pamela Clancy said her client would not consider mediation as what happened on the street is part of chronic behaviour by the husband.
Ms Clancy said: “There has been no relationship since 2012 but there is ongoing abusive behaviour. Gardaí have been called and without a Safety Order they say, there is not much they can do.”
Ms Clancy said the man has a problem accepting that the marriage is over and asked him was he entitled to know where his wife was and he replied: “I think I am.”
The sitting judge told the man that he was married more than 40 years ago when he had a certain view of the obligations of a wife to a husband “and the world has changed”.
The husband replied: “As far as I concerned, it hasn’t changed on my part.”
The judge said that he would encourage the parties to formalise their separation. “Ye should bring matters to a head but not in the context of the Domestic Violence Act,” he added.