Judge grants woman safety order after ex-husband keyed car when she rejected his advances
Gordon Deegan
A judge has granted a Co Clare woman a safety order against her ex-husband after he keyed all around her car and struck her twice when she refused his sexual advances.
At the Family Law Court in Ennis, Judge Valerie Corcoran granted the woman a two-year safety order after accepting her evidence that she was injured by her ex-husband and put in fear by him in a late-night incident.
The judge said that she found the woman’s evidence “to be credible and honest”.
The judge said that also accepted the woman’s evidence that her ex-husband followed her to a house after the pub and her evidence on his sexual advances.
In her evidence, the woman said that she was in a local pub, and shortly after her ex-husband entered the pub, she left and went to a friend’s house. She said that he followed her there.
The woman said that her ex-husband came to the house as she was going to bed as she had to get up early the next morning to pick up her children from friends’ sleepovers.
The woman said that he followed her into a bedroom “and I said he could stay but I wanted to go to sleep”.
She said that he then “tried to get physically sexual towards me and I said ‘no, I want to go to sleep’ and then I was out of the bed on the floor and after that I got hit into the ribs from a fist or a leg”.
The woman said that her ex-husband “was very angry” and continued shouting and arguing.
She said: “I put my right arm over my head to shield myself, and then I got another hit into the right thigh.”
The woman said that her ex-husband then left the bedroom, and she saw that the car keys were gone from her handbag on the kitchen table.
The woman said that she phoned her ex over the missing keys, and she said that she noticed that her car had been damaged by a key. She said: “It had been keyed all round and my keys were gone.”
Under cross-examination from solicitor, Colum Doherty for the ex-husband, the woman said that not a word was exchanged between the two in the pub.
Doherty said that his client will say “that he did not get physical with you in the bed”.
The woman said that this was not case.
Doherty said that his client says that there has never been a history of physical assaults, and the woman said: “There has been a history - I just never brought him to court.”
Doherty said that his client “never keyed the car - isn’t that the reality?”
In response, the woman replied: “Did I key the car myself and cause these injuries to myself?”
As part of her two-year order, Corcoran said that there is to be no communication between the two and that it also prohibits the man from watching and besetting the woman.
