A 42-year-old father has been found guilty of assaulting his ex-wife in full view of their four-year-old child.
The man, whose name is being withheld by The Mayo News, pleaded not guilty and represented himself before Castlebar District Court last Wednesday. Audio clips of the incidents were central to the prosecution’s case.
His ex-wife told the court she and the man have been legally separated for three years and have been apart almost six years. She told the court that her husband left her when she was pregnant with their child.
She spoke of two incidents of assault, which took place on dates in April and June 2016, when she had met the man as part of a custody arrangement.
She said the first incident happened after she had emailed him with a concern over the child’s supervision during his access. She said that when they met, her ex-husband approached her and pushed her with his body back towards her car, telling her not to ‘threaten’ him again and that ‘what I do with (child’s name) is none of your business’.
She told the court that he also said that if she ‘threatened’ him again, he would send her back to her home county. She told the court she could see her daughter’s lip dropping upon witnessing this and waved at her daughter to try to placate her.
The second incident, the victim told the court, arose from a dispute over where their daughter would go to school. She told the court her ex-husband grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her, subsequently pinning her against her car and pulling her by the right ear.
‘Very upset’
She told the court that her daughter had seen the incident and had become very upset. She said she recorded both incidents, as she was fearful whenever she met him. These recordings were played to the court. In them, the victim could be heard calling her ex-husband ‘a small little man’ and ‘a coward’, while he could be heard saying he would send her ‘back to her home county’. At the end of the June incident, a child can be heard crying loudly in the background.
In his own summary, the defendant said they had been ‘in and out’ of court for years and that a series of allegations made against him were unfounded and ‘thrown out of court’. He claimed that it is ‘very sad [about] the way the child is being manipulated’ and that he wanted to get on with his life. He said he did not touch his ex-wife on any of the occasions in question.
Inspector Gary Walsh (prosecuting) said it was clear from the audio recordings that the defendant was ‘very threatening’ and ‘in an agitated state’. He said the comment about sending his ex-wife back to her home county is clearly a threat.
Judge Mary Devins said the cases of assault were proven. The court heard that the defendant has no previous convictions and that, as he was representing himself, she would need a Probation Report to find out more about him.
The case was adjourned to May 17 next.
