A woman has told how her husband still had the “ability to instil fear in her even if he was 200 miles away”, such was the coercive control he exerted over her in their 20 year marriage.
The man struck his wife with a livestock whip, repeatedly threatened and called her abusive names, insisted on knowing who she was meeting and constantly made sexual demands of her. He is due to be sentenced next month,
The woman, who is now separated from the man, told the Central Criminal Court in Cork that “the constant critical and demeaning running commentary on everything I did and the name-calling” had chipped away at “my confidence, individuality and ability to think for myself”.
She said when her daughter stopped coming home from college, it “contributed even more to the isolation he had created for me. He told me everyone was using me, but it was him that was using me – I couldn’t speak my own mind. I was trained into being compliant from the start.”
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The woman told how she had been in counselling since the couple separated in 2021. She said she had asked her counsellor would she ever get her old self back, “meaning the happy, smiling, glass half-full, loving, carefree trusting person” but the counsellor said she would not.
“I was in shock and angry at being told I would never get my old self back ... but then I realised I would have to accept that I will never be the same and I didn’t want my old self back. I wanted to learn from the past and become a stronger person,” she said in her victim impact statement.
Det Gda Raelleen Bell of the Kerry Protective Services Unit had earlier outlined the background to the case when the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to the persistent coercive control of the woman between January 1st, 2019 and September 8th, 2021.
She said the middle-aged couple had married in 2004 in their home county of Kerry but she quickly noticed he had a vicious temper and did not want her to have any friends unless they were people he approved of.
He once asked her if she would go to bed with singer John Bon Jovi and when she said that she would, he became angry and ignored her for a week giving her the silent treatment while he would insist on them having regular and frequent sex even when she didn’t want to.
On another occasion, when they went to Puck Fair in Killorglin at his insistence, even though it was her birthday, he pushed her against the banister at the accommodation they were staying in, grabbed her by the throat and called her “an ungrateful c**t”.
On another occasion in Ardfert, he hit in her the face and while he apologised the following day for his actions, he told her she had driven him to hit her. The woman would end up apologising for his behaviour towards her as he made her feel it was always her fault.
He had serious anger issues as well as an alcohol problem and although she asked him to give up drink and he did for period, he began drinking again on a family holiday. He got very abusive when he had drink taken, regularly her calling her a c**t in front of their children.
When she found letters from him to another woman, she thought about leaving him but he persuaded her to stay. When she did leave him at one stage for a short time, his parents told her he was suicidal and he later showed her where he had planned to take his own life.
On one occasion, he threatened to kill her in their renovated home saying “I will burn you in it, you c**t before you live in it”. He continued to demand sex from her and on one occasion, he accused her of deliberately having her period so as to avoid having sex with him.
On another occasion, he caught her fingers in a door and he used to put his fist up as if to hit her only to pull it away. If she handed him something in the kitchen, he would deliberately drop it and order her to pick it up, the detective told the court.
Judge Siobhan Lankford thanked the woman for her Victim Impact Statement but said she needed to consider both the evidence and the case law on coercive control, which carries a maximum penalty of five years.
She adjourned the matter until June 3rd for sentence.
