A woman who fled back to Ireland after her husband allegedly produced an automatic rifle and threatened to shoot her has secured an interim barring order against him.
Both are professionals who lived and worked here for years before moving back to their native country for a time, she told the District Court family court in Dolphin House, Dublin.
Their marriage of more than three decades was “rife” with emotional abuse and later with physical abuse. She returned to Ireland by herself after he “pulled an automatic rifle” and tried to shoot her but their adult son tackled him and prevented him doing so, she said.
Her husband remains in their native country but has repeatedly threatened to shoot or kill her and their daughter, and has ordered her to leave their jointly owned Irish home, she said. “He is saying he is going to come here and destroy all our lives.” She is in fear of him, she told Judge Gerard Furlong.
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Granting an interim barring order, the judge described the matter as very serious.
The woman was among up to 30 people who applied ex parte (one side only represented) on Friday for emergency orders under the Domestic Violence Act.
An elderly disabled woman, brought by a medical social worker into court in a wheelchair, said she is living in fear due to alleged abuse by her daughter and granddaughter, who had returned to live with her about two years ago.
There is a background of drink and drugs and the alleged abuse included the woman being punched in the face by her granddaughter, aged in her 20s, the judge was told. Her food, medication, phone and laptop had been stolen by her daughter on occasions, leaving her very vulnerable, the court heard.
Carers once found the woman lying on the floor and had concerns about her being dehydrated due to her food, supplied by a care agency, been allegedly stolen, the court heard.
Judge Furlong granted emergency safety orders against the daughter and granddaughter restraining them using violence against the woman, putting her in fear or interfering with her care.
She had sought barring orders but the judge said, due to “a lacuna” in the Domestic Violence Act, she could not seek a barring order against the adult granddaughter. The barring order application against her daughter, and an application for a five-year safety order against her granddaughter, were adjourned to February.
If there was any breach of the emergency orders, gardaí should be contacted and the woman can immediately return to court to seek appropriate orders, the judge said.
In another case, a mother of three adult children was granted an interim barring order against her long-term partner who she alleged has physically and mentally abused her throughout their relationship, including punching her in the face.
Verbal abuse is “a daily routine”, she said.
She has very poor physical and mental health, he calls her “Aids” because she has HIV and says she is” not dying quickly enough”, she said. “He takes my meds off me all the time, I can’t live without it.”
At her sibling’s funeral, he told her he would put her in of top of her dead sibling, she said. “I can’t live with it any more.”
In another case, a young woman obtained a protection order against her mother, who is subject of a bail condition preventing her returning to the family home pending other proceedings.
The woman, who recently turned 18, said her mother has always had a drink problem and has been abusive to her for years, including beating and strangling her when she was younger, warning her not to tell her father. Her mother verbally and emotionally abused her, telling her she was not a wanted child.
“I was always scared coming home.”
Her mother continues to use “cruel” verbal abuse towards her, including telling her she is a “slut”, “lazy bitch”, and “no one will ever want you”. She was kept awake at night by her mother scratching at her bedroom door and suffers anxiety and panic attacks as a result of her mother’s behaviour, she said.
Her father earlier told the judge he previously obtained a protection order against his wife over “extremely abusive” behaviour towards himself and their daughter.
The orders protected himself and his daughter when she was a minor but because she recently turned 18, she was making her own application, he said.
He did not want his wife back in the family home because, since she was out of it, due to court orders and attending addiction treatment, his daughter was “a different child”.
“She can smile now,” he said.
Having been told of other court proceedings next week, the judge said the man should await the outcome of those before considering whether to pursue his application for a barring order.
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