The president of the High Court has lifted an order restraining an elderly man from visiting his wife, who has dementia and other health difficulties, in a nursing home.
Orders restraining visits by the couple’s son, previously secretly recorded as making “vile” threats to his mother in her home, have been continued.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly lifted the orders against the woman's husband on foot of appeals from other family members and a letter from the husband saying he loves and cannot live without his wife of many decades.
The woman is a ward of court and the HSE and general solicitor for wards of court consented to the husband's visits on terms set by the court, including being subject to regulation by the nursing home.
The judge said he had made the orders against the husband very reluctantly and only because he appeared to be under the influence of his son when accompanying him during visits to the woman which her medical team considered very disruptive, distressing for the woman and potentially harmful.
The woman is now in a nursing home but was in hospital until recently.
She was moved to hospital by court order last month on the application of the HSE after her daughter provided social workers with a secret recording made by her of abusive exchanges between the son and his parents in their home which the judge described as vile and horrible.
On Monday, when the case returned to court, the judge heard evidence from that daughter, who was in court with her sister and another relative.
All three supported the orders being continued against the son but not the woman’s husband.
A ‘broken man’
In evidence, the daughter said she is very concerned for her father’s well being as he was very distressed at being unable to visit her mother. She considered her brother has a negative influence on her father and the latter was “a different person” away from him.
The judge heard the daughters, with assistance of the general solicitor, plan to find appropriate accommodation for their mother in another part of the country near them, and accommodation for their father close by. The intention was to sell their parents home to facilitate that.
The daughter said other family members had been suspicious about possible abuse of their mother by the son and also had concerns their father is also “on the receiving end of abuse”.
Her father took ill over the weekend, appears to be a “broken man” and had asked her to give the judge a letter, she said. In that, the man stated he and his wife were in love and married for decades, had never been apart and he could not live without his wife who was his “rock”.
The daughter said her parents had previously wanted to sell their house and move closer to the part of the country where she and her sister live but the son, who lives with them, had taken their house off the market.
The judge said he had restricted the father’s visits because of concerns, during the joint visits of the son and father, the woman was being given food and materials detrimental to her well being.
He said the woman is not well and needs to be looked after with love and affection which was “not evident” from the son’s care.
Things had taken “a turn for the better” with the daughters’ intervention, he said. He was satisfied to discontinue the orders against the father and noted there is now “a real likelihood” both parents might end up living close together and near their daughters.
The orders remain in place against the son pending further order.
