Father wins barring order against wife who doctored whey powder

A Co Clare father has won a barring order against his wife after he told a judge that she had “tried to finish me off” by putting crushed paracetamol tablets into his protein powder last August.

In the witness box, the man told Judge Patrick Durcan in Ennis: "If I had drank it all and I was on the motorway, I could have got dizzy, conked out – whatever. I'm afraid of my life that I wouldn't be here for my kids."

The man, a gym enthusiast, said he was saved from getting sick only because the contaminated whey powder in a water mix was “so vile [that] after taking the first slug out of the bottle, I didn’t drink any more”. The woman has previously admitted tampering with the whey powder.

The couple had enjoyed “a normal marriage”, full of the usual ups and downs, until two years ago when “something changed in my wife and she seemed to be on a track on trying to damage and harm me in any way she could”.

Accused him of affair

His wife had accused him of having an affair with his own sister and a work colleague, he said. “My wife had told that she hates me, she wants me dead and she is going to get rid of me and her behaviour had become more violent and vicious.

“I am a good Dad and I love my kids. I want to be here as long as I can and the fact that someone that I loved since the day I met her would decide to poison me – my kids could have ended up without me.”

He said he had sought the barring order at the Ennis Family Law Court because “I am afraid that something else will happen. I am in fear of my life and my children’s lives.”

The 12-month order was granted by the judge.

‘Terrible things’

The man’s wife wept as Judge Durcan made his order, adding the woman had done “terrible things” to her husband “and things which could have had fatal and very dangerous consequences”.

Giving testimony, the woman said: “I did a stupid thing and I will regret it for the rest of my life. I wasn’t trying to kill him, like he said. If I wanted to kill him I would have put a load in. I did it to make him sick because he made me sick.”

The woman was admitted into psychiatric care on the same day last month that she had admitted doctoring her husband’s whey powder. She had tried to take her own life during the summer, the court was told.