A "wicked and violent" woman, whose uncontrollable rages caused her family to flee their home, narrowly escaped prison yesterday when a judge was told she had defied the court.
Ms June Brennan was ordered a month ago to leave her sister Patricia's house in Rosemount Estate, Dundrum, Dublin. But had continued in occupation, Judge Liam Devally was told in the Dublin Circuit Civil Court.
Her defiance of his order to quit was brought to Judge Devally's attention twice and last week he demanded she be brought before him.
When Mr Tony Hunt, counsel for Ms Patricia Brennan and her father, Edward, told the court that the defendant had declined Eastern Health Board assistance in obtaining new accommodation, Judge Devally ordered she be placed in prison for a week.
But following an undertaking that she would get out of the house immediately, Ms Brennan was given four days to comply "or face a month, or even two" in Mountjoy Prison.
Judge Devally had previously6 being told that Ms Brennan's violent and uncontrollable rages had caused three generations of her family to flee treir home in terror.
Her father, now approaching 80, her sister and her own teenage daughter had been forced to leave because of her appalling behaviour.
"They fled shortly after the death of her own mother, Mrs Edward Brennan. Mr Brennan had signed the house over to his other daughter, Patricia," Judge Devally said.
On May 19th last, her father and sister of Meadowpark, Churchtown, had been granted an injunction ordering her to vacate the house forthwith.
Yesterday, Judge Devally told Ms Brennan she had "terrorised and terrified" her family, including her teenage daughter who had fled to live with an aunt.
"All of her family, and particularly her daughter, are threatened in a physical and psychological way by her," he said. "She has deliberately perjured herself.
"She is a threat and a menace to her family as long as she is in that house. I am very concerned about her young daughter whose life she has almost destroyed," he added.
He ordered her to appear before him again on Friday.