“It is killing me, you would not see a dog like this,” a distressed mother told the emergency domestic violence court when describing her “emaciated” drug-using daughter.
The daughter uses crack cocaine, which makes her “capable of things she would never do in her normal state”, the woman said.
“Please help me, I’m suicidal, I’m afraid all the time,” she told Judge Adrian Harris.
Her daughter’s “volatile and angry” behaviour, and an incident where her boyfriend forced his way into their home and threatened her grandmother with a knife, have put the entire household in fear, the woman said.
READ MORE
The woman’s elderly mother, who lives with her, was alone in the house at the time, she said.
After someone phoned her to say her daughter was “in a bad way” in Dublin city centre, the woman called a taxi to bring her home, believing she would be cold and hungry. On her return, she ran into the house “screaming for money for drugs” before leaving again.
“She is not well. There are services, but she won’t engage. It is killing me, you would not see a dog like this.”
The woman, her mother and another child lock themselves into the house all the time out of fear, she said.
The woman secured an interim barring order ex parte (one side represented) against her daughter earlier this month and the matter returned before Harris at the court in Dolphin House, Dublin, on Thursday.
There was no appearance by, or on behalf of, the daughter, whom the woman said she had not seen since Tuesday.
Applying for a full barring order, the woman said she wanted that because the situation had “deteriorated badly”, but she hopes and prays her daughter will get well.
“I live in hope [that] I could have a relationship with her again.”
The judge granted a three-year barring order, but told the woman the matter could be reassessed if the situation improves.
When he said she may have to seek other orders arising from the incident involving her daughter’s boyfriend, the woman said the man had been arrested and remains in custody. The Garda detective working on that case is “very good” and keeps her informed, she added.
In another case, a woman secured a protection order against her husband after alleging that he is an alcoholic who subjects her to taunting and mental and verbal abuse. When they married less than two years ago, she knew him as a recovering alcoholic and not as a drinker. She now lives in fear in her own home, which she had before she met him.
She lives in her locked bedroom and has a “horrible existence”.
“I’m an abuse survivor and he knows how to get into my fears,” she said.
Both have adult children, but his children want nothing to do with him due to their experience of his drinking, she said. He has told her he would not move out of the house, although it is in her name, she added.
In a separate case, a man obtained a protection order against his ex-partner, who he said is a “chronic” alcoholic and cocaine user. She is “completely unstable”, is very abusive to him when he collects and returns their child, has damaged his car and house and phoned his new partner 120 times in two days, he said.
His ex has been arrested “multiple” times and Tusla has told him he could deal with her mother in relation to access to his child, he said.
An interim barring order was granted to a tearful woman who said her ex-husband was very violent to her during their marriage, including in front of their children, and made “multiple” threats to kill her. She previously got a one-year barring order, which he breached by following her on the street, urging her to sleep with him, she said.
He was constantly unfaithful during their marriage and spent €8,000 of their joint income “on pickup websites”.
“Things are so much better since he left,” she said. Their children “are so much happier and all is peaceful”.
However, he recently came into her workplace, she is “terrified” he will come back to her home and is “in fear for my life”, she said.
