A man alleged to have forcibly tried to bless his special needs son with “church oils” has been barred from his family home after a hearing at the Dublin District Family Court on Tuesday.
In a written statement, the teenage boy’s mother told Judge Gerard Furlong that, at the weekend, her husband had grabbed their son and pushed him back against a couch.
She said her husband forcibly made the sign of the cross on their son’s head and mouth using church oils.
“My son was trying to get him off,” she said.
She said she tried remove her husband from her son and he turned on her and began choking her. She told the judge she already had a domestic violence safety order against her husband, that required him not to use violence or threaten to use violence against her or her son.
When she called gardaí, they arrested him and took him away.
They later returned her husband to the family home and advised her to seek a barring order from the court, which would exclude him from the home. Gardaí also asked the woman to sign a note stating she had been advised to get a barring order, she said.
Fear of husband
“I am afraid of my husband,” she told the judge. “I think he is going crazy.”
The teenage boy, who was also present in court, sat rocking as his mother gave evidence.
Asked by the judge which church the oils were from, the woman said she did not know.
Granting an interim barring order for eight days, Judge Furlong said the incident should not have happened and her husband “cannot be at home”.
A full hearing of the case, with both husband and wife present, will take place next week.
The case was among up to 30 ex-parte (one side present only) domestic violence applications heard by five judges sitting at the Dublin District Family Courts, Dolphin House, following the bank holiday weekend break.
A woman, with her two young children, told Judge Furlong she needed protection against her partner. He had come home on Friday night and she knew he’d been “on the stuff” so she refused to sleep in the same bed with him. He had broken the wardrobe and the door, she said, and had sent her nasty messages since then. She read some messages to the judge:
“Fat, ugly sh*t, that’s what you are,” one read.
Another said “I hope you die of cancer.”
Protection order
The judge granted a protection order, requiring the man not to be violent or threaten violence against the woman or her children, but not requiring him to leave the family home. A full hearing of the case, with both sides present, has been scheduled for June.
Among other domestic violence cases, a man in his 70s was granted a protection order against his daughter in her 30s. He told the judge she was “a heavy drinker” and at the weekend she attacked him, punching and kicking him, spitting in his face and verbally abusing him.
“I just can’t handle it anymore,” he said.
Another man, who lived in sheltered accommodation for older people, was given a protection order against his son. He said his son, in his late 20s, was homeless and called to him every day. He had let him stay over a couple of nights, but he had begun to be aggressive. On Thursday night, the man said, his son threw a can at him, held his fist to his face and then threw him out of his own house. He called gardaí and they removed him.
“I think he’s on something,” the man said.
