A man who left his family home over alleged sustained physical and emotional abuse by his former partner, including knife cuts to his face and arms, got a protection order against her.
For a time he lied to members of his family over cuts to his face and arms, saying they were inflicted by another person when in fact they were inflicted by his partner, the man said.
“I was covering for her,” he told Judge Gerard Furlong at the emergency domestic violence court in Dolphin House, Dublin.
He said he worked long hours trying to pay a large mortgage on the family home because he was the only one in the household in long-term employment.
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His partner would “berate and belittle me” because he preferred to stay at home with their children at night rather than go to the pub with her, he said.
She regularly threatened him with violence when she returned from the pub, he added. Her “favourite expression” at bedtime was to threaten “to knife me”.
She sent him a WhatsApp message saying she would “run a knife through me”, he said.
The level of abuse escalated after she lost a lot of weight, he said. He suspected she had become involved in an inappropriate relationship with another man, which she denied.
He had suffered a heart attack some years previously, he said. “She told me she hopes next heart attack will kill me and she will be left with no mortgage.”
Because of this behaviour, he left the family home some months ago and is living with his elderly parents but continues to see his children, the man said.
The application was among several made ex parte (one side only represented) before the court on Friday for orders under the Domestic Violence Act.
In another case, the judge granted an interim barring order to a woman against her ex-partner. She got an interim barring order last month but gardaí had not served that, with the effect the woman had to reapply, the judge noted.
The woman said the man was “in active addiction”, using crack cocaine and tablets. “I would say he’s using anything at this stage.”
He comes and goes from the family home, his behaviour is “very unpredictable” and “anything of value” goes missing from the house, including money, clothes belonging to their older child, shoes and jewellery, she said.
“I’m constantly anxious when he is in the house, I have to have my handbag with me at all times, even when I go to bed,” she said.
The man’s behaviour is affecting their children, who are suffering anxiety and panic attacks, the court heard.
The man locks himself in the bathroom to use drugs and she found a “dirty drug kit” on the stairs on one occasion after he had gone out, she said.
In a separate case, the judge continued for two weeks an interim barring order granted earlier this month to a mother against her daughter, aged in her 20s.
The order, made ex parte, was returnable before the judge on Friday, when the daughter was entitled to attend. However, the daughter was also before the criminal courts on Friday and the criminal case took precedence, the judge said.
The mother said her daughter lives with her and there are only the two of them at home. Her daughter has had addiction issues, using drink and crack cocaine, for about three years.
She sought the order after her daughter arrived home about 10pm recently, “out of her mind on drugs”. She said her daughter pushed her way into the house, bent her mother’s fingers back, went upstairs and took her mother’s bank card and some new clothes from her mother’s bedroom, despite her mother’s protests.
The woman said she feared her daughter would hit her and called gardaí, who arrived quickly.
She is afraid of her daughter, the woman said. “She needs help, I have tried so many times.”
