A woman has secured a five-year safety order against her husband after he made a gun gesture with his hand in front of her.
The woman told Dublin District Family Court on Wednesday she was terrified of her husband after an incident earlier this year and had left the family home with their children. The order prohibits the woman’s husband from using or threatening violence.
The woman said her husband arrived home drunk one night while she was sleeping with their infant son in his bed.
The woman said her husband threw himself on top of them and that she managed to push him off and check on one of their other children, who was sleeping in another room.
The woman said when she came back the man was tapping their son’s face, thinking it was her. She said her husband then began scraping and squeezing her hand tightly and that her son said “stop hurting mammy”.
The woman said her husband said to her “several times” that night that he couldn’t wait to see her “five foot under”. The woman also said he made the sign of a gun under her chin, into her eye socket and her temple.
The woman told the court she later went downstairs with their son and that her husband proceeded to throw a pint glass of water over the both of them. The woman said her husband also grabbed her by the neck and was dragging her saying “I hate you, I despise you”. The woman left the family home with their children that night.
The woman said she attended a GP the following day and presented a doctor’s report to the judge.
‘Smashing his fists’
The woman said the last few months “wasn’t a very nice environment” for her and the children and that her husband was drinking every evening. He got “very angry” on occasions and he was always losing his temper, including smashing his fists at the dinner table.
The man told the court he didn’t accept his wife’s version of events. He said he arrived home after having three cans of beer at his parents’ home around midnight. The man said he went into his son’s room where his wife was sleeping and stroked her hand in order to wake her.
Judge Gerard Furlong asked the man why he was waking his wife at this time. "I was feeling isolated...lonely. I had missed the company of my wife," he said.
The man said his wife pulled away and he “fell forward” on top of her and their son. The man said he accidentally caught his son’s face with his hand. The man said his wife shoved him away and he became angry and “uttered some harsh words”. “I told her ‘I despise you’,” he said.
The man said he didn’t use the “five foot under” term but that “I did gesture with my hand and utter the sound of a gun”.
He denied touching her while making the gun signal and said the gesture indicated the state of the couple’s relationship. He said he had caught his wife by the collar of her pyjamas as she left the bedroom as “I wanted to speak to her”.
The man said he went for a shower and by the time he was dressed his wife and children were gone. The man said the couple’s relationship had gotten to the stage where there was “no communication whatsoever” adding “it was as if I was invisible”. He said he did not have a problem with alcohol.
Judge Furlong said he was granting a five-year safety order “without hesitation”. Judge Furlong also issued an interim maintenance order and set a full hearing, for maintenance and access summonses to be heard, for a later date.
He requested an expert report be completed to assess the views and wishes of the couple’s children.
