A woman who alleged her ex-partner “bombarded” her with “very vile” sexually explicit text messages has obtained a protection order against him.
The man once sent the woman 50 text messages in the space of five hours, she told Dublin District Family Court. Some included photographs of his genitals and sexually explicit statements of what he wished to do to the woman and wanted her to do to him, she said.
She said she was concerned about the man turning up at her house unannounced. “He is very volatile because of his addictions,” she told the judge.
The only communication the woman wished to have with him was about arranging his access to their two young children, she added.
In another case, a man and his two adult children obtained protection orders against his estranged long-term partner, the children’s mother, over her alleged violent and intimidating behaviour.
The woman, who lives near all three, has a serious mental health condition and had physically abused her two children when they were young, judge Mark O’Connell was told.
In their separate applications, all three said they were in fear of the woman. Her son said a counsellor dealing with his mother had said she needed help beyond what the counsellor could offer.
On being told the protection order was returnable to November, when the woman is entitled to attend, the daughter asked that gardaí be present. The judge said there is always a Garda presence at the court at Dolphin House.
The applications were among several made last Thursday on an ex parte basis (one side only represented) for protection or interim barring orders under the Domestic Violence Act.
A distressed woman said she feared her ex-partner’s behaviour could lead to her losing the “forever home” she obtained after being homeless for years.
He was very abusive throughout their long relationship and, when she was on her way to the family court, had given her “a smack of a bottle in the face”.
The woman said the man does not live with her but she previously let him stay “the odd night”. He had put holes in the walls, used knives to threaten her and would stab himself and blame it on her, she said.
Armed gardaí had been around to her home because he had knives, she said.
While he no longer stays with her, he still comes around to her apartment “and makes an absolute show of me”, the woman said.
She had received letters from the council following complaints about antisocial behaviour and felt her home was “in jeopardy”.
“I am in fear of my life over this man,” she said.
The judge, telling the woman she was very brave to come to court, granted a protection order.
In a separate application, a protection order was granted to a woman who said her husband is very emotionally and verbally abusive towards her.
There were issues from the beginning of their marriage including over “very silly things”. She said he would tell her she could not raise her voice and was “a girl who should remain quiet and listen to him because he is head of the family and makes the decisions”, she said.
“I can’t decide anything, if I say anything, he says I am behaving like a man,” the court heard.
In an incident last year, after she told him she would tell her family about “bad words” he used against her, he destroyed her phone and threatened to hit her on the head with it, the woman said.
She called gardaí but did not tell them what had happened because she was afraid her husband would be jailed and she believed he would not behave like that again.
After she obtained a safety order last year, his behaviour improved for a time but it had again deteriorated and he is very emotionally and verbally abusive, she said.
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