A woman whose husband has “a big villa” in a Mediterranean country told the Dublin District Family Court their relationship ended because another woman had been visiting him in prison.
Judge Gerard Furlong granted the woman a temporary barring order on an ex parte (one side represented only) basis after she told him she did not want her youngest child exposed to the type of abuse she endured, and her older children witnessed, prior to her husband, since released, going to prison.
She said her children enjoyed “a peaceful home” during the lengthy period he was in prison for, but she had endured abuse and him conducting “many affairs” prior to his incarceration.
She said she “struggled” with the resumed abuse after having years of peace while he served his sentence.
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When told that her husband would be notified of the temporary order so he could attend a full hearing if he so wished, the woman said he was “constantly back and forth” between Ireland and the Mediterranean country where he had “bought a big villa”.
In another case, a woman with adult children from an earlier relationship told the judge her wife “shouts at me, insults me, and undermines me” and was trying to drive her out of the house, which is solely in her wife’s name.
“I am terrified of my wife,” she said, when applying for a temporary protection order on an ex parte basis.
She said it was only when she arrived at the court that she learned her wife had been granted an ex parte protection order against her, which had yet to be served.
The woman told the court she sold her own house and spent some of the money on her wife’s house where she now does her best “not to be in the same room as her”.
The two applications for full protection orders will now be made at the same hearing.
An older couple was granted an ex parte protection order against their son, who is in his 30s and lives with them, after telling the court he was an alcoholic, was regularly abusive to them and frightened them.
They said they had reported their son for “elder abuse” to the HSE and wanted him to be given help and removed from the family home.
The judge said, with an interim protection order, An Garda Síochána could arrest their son if he threatened them or caused them to fear for their safety. If he was charged, the gardaí could ask that as a condition of his bail be that he stays away from the family home.
In an application for an ex parte barring order, an unmarried woman living with the father of their adult children said she “lives in fear of him every day”. She said she had a protection order but had never called the gardaí because she was “so afraid”.
The man, she said, works but does not contribute to the running of the house.
“I live in my bedroom but pay for everything,” she said.
The judge said he could not grant her application as she already had a protection order she had not used.
He said if the gardaí were ever called and her husband was charged, she could ask them to ask that it be a condition of his receiving bail that he stay away from the house.
If the bail condition was not granted, she could come back to court to seek an emergency barring order.
Meanwhile, Furlong said, her application for a barring order would go to a hearing where her husband had the right to be represented.
