A woman who had a black eye when she came to the emergency domestic violence court with her newborn baby claimed her husband “kicked me and dragged me up and down”.
Two other women who brought separate emergency applications under the Domestic Violence Act to the court at Dolphin House, Dublin, on Friday, also had babies with them.
When Judge William Aylmer remarked on the first woman’s black eye, she said her husband kicked her and dragged her up and down and was abusive many times during their long marriage.
She had given him “loads of chances” to change his behaviour but he had not. “I don’t feel safe. I’ve had enough.”
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“He reckons the drink and drugs make him do this.” He also blamed his behaviour on trying to deal with several suicides in his birth family, she added.
Her mother had told her she needed to “wake up” and stop tolerating her husband’s abusive behaviour. “I have to think of my own health and the kids. He needs to stop his pity party.”
Judge Aylmer, telling the woman he agreed with her, granted her a protection order.
In another case, a weeping woman with a baby got a protection order against the child’s father. He “gets very angry out of nowhere”, “never stops” and she has spent two months asking him to leave her apartment, she said.
He had a “meltdown” some days earlier when she took the baby from him before he had finished changing her nappy. The baby was hiccupping and she took her up because she feared the infant was about to vomit, she said.
He “gritted” his teeth, called her “disgusting” and put his finger in her face. “The look on his face, I got really scared.”
She had permitted him to live with her for periods and he kicked her out on some occasions, she said. “I slept in a hotel when I was nine months pregnant because he would not give me a break.”
They had gone to therapy but he had not taken agreed actions to address his issues, she said. “I have no problem him having a relationship with his daughter but our relationship is over. I can’t be with him.”
A woman with a baby and toddler got an interim barring order against her partner. She said he physically abused her previously and recently forced his way out of their home after pushing her away from the door when she confronted him about a suspected affair.
He grabbed her arm, leaving her with bruises, and when she sought to stop him leaving, drove his car towards her, scaring her, she said. He has not returned home and had told a social worker he did not intend to, she said.
A distraught mother who told the judge she is in fear and has “lost everything” as a result of her adult daughter’s drug addiction got a protection order against her.
Her daughter, aged in her thirties, told her “one side of my brain is telling me to stab and slice you and the other side is saying ‘that’s your Mammy’”. Her daughter had been in a violent relationship and has children, all of whom are being cared for by other family members.
“God help any other family going through this.” She paid €3,000 to drug dealers for her daughter’s debts and her daughter constantly pesters her for money, especially at night.
“She is getting worse and worse, the drugs have her destroyed, she’ll be at it again tonight, I can’t bear it.”
After she spent almost €500 getting her daughter into a treatment unit, she was thrown out due to excess drugs in her system, she said. Another treatment appointment was fixed for later this year.
“It’s destroying me, all we’re doing is ringing places trying to get her help and we’re getting nowhere.” When the judge said drugs are a “demon” and many are in the same position, the woman agreed. “I can see the little kids being destroyed, they are little ‘gofers’ for them.”
She grew up in a large family, none got involved in drugs, she never drank and “worked hard all my life to put food on the table”. Many people she grew up with were dead from drugs.
In another case, the judge granted a fresh protection order to a woman who said gardaí found a meat cleaver, which she did not know was there, in a box in her home after her ex-partner had threatened to “chop me up”.
He had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and accused her of having listening devices in the house, she said. She previously got a protection order against him but gardaí could not locate him to serve it. She last saw him in May and did not know where he was.
