A woman who claimed her father “abused me all my life”, including alleged sexual abuse leading to two pregnancies, has received an emergency protection order against him.Her father sexually abused her when she was younger after he came into her life when she was aged 13 and took her and a friend “drinking every day”, she said. That sexual abuse led to two pregnancies, including one resulting in the child’s death, she said.Her father still controls and abuses her, she said, including coming into her home “whenever he feels like it”, smashing up things, including her phone and TV, stealing her car, which was bought with a damages award to her and taking her social welfare payments. She has several children who have been taken into care “due to all of this”, she told Judge Áine Clancy at the Family Law Court in Dolphin House, Dublin.Gardaí and Tusla have helped her and she is now in a refuge “for safety”, the woman said. “I’m ready to speak.” She made some disclosures previously, she added.After the judge asked had she received medical assistance, the woman said she has a good relationship with her doctor and counselling and other appointments have been made for her. The woman was accompanied into court by two gardaí. One said he is with a child protection unit and the situation regarding the woman is “complex”, different jurisdictions and investigations are involved, and an ongoing “significant risk” of harm to the children led to their being taken into care. The woman is co-operating with gardaí regarding what is best for her and the children, he added.Clancy, who earlier noted the woman’s information supporting her application was “really extreme”, said she had “no hesitation” granting a protection order. After she told the woman she hoped she is looking after herself, the woman replied: “I’m trying” and thanked the judge.The ex parte (one side only represented) application was among several made to the judge under the Domestic Violence Act on Friday.A distressed mother got an interim barring order against her adult son, who has addiction issues. She said he recently came into her bedroom at night looking for money and put his hand over her mouth and throat before taking her purse.He came back into her bedroom after realising there were no bank cards in the purse and held her up against the wall, demanding she give him cash, she said. She agreed to Revolut him €300 “because my nerves were gone”.She rang gardaí, but her son later came back to the house and waited at the top of the stairs with a butcher knife “because he knew the gardaí were coming”, she said. “It just didn’t seem like him, there were no features in his face, it was like looking at glass in his eyes,” she said. “I feared he would kill me.” When the judge asked if the marks on her face were a result of this incident, the woman said, when she gets stressed, blood vessels burst in her face. She has marks on the back of her neck from her son holding her against the wall, she added.Her son was in Garda custody on Friday, the woman told the judge. “The gardaí were lovely.”The woman, a widow, said this was the first time she sought an order against her son but she felt she had “no choice”. “This has been coming a long time,” she said. Another upset mother, who said her adult son is a cocaine addict, got an interim barring order against him.The woman said she fled her home when a drug dealer arrived there over three days, kicked the door in and threatened “to get me and beat me up”. “I was terrified,” she said. She went to her daughter’s house and remains in fear, she said. This situation has been going on for three years and all her son does is ask her for money to help him, she said.She previously got a protection order against him because he threatened to stab his sister when he was “out of his head”, she said.That order “worked like a treat” for a time but now she believed he had to go “because I’m terrified who will kick the door in next”.She did not want him put out, he has no convictions and never threatened her himself, she told the court. “It’s these drug dealers.”Telling the woman she seemed “a very nice, gentle person”, the judge was satisfied there was an immediate risk to her safety and granted an interim barring order.When the woman said she wants to continue communications with her son “just to make sure he is all right”, the judge said the order would not prevent communications.
Alleged sexual abuse by father led to two pregnancies, daughter tells court
Woman says man first came into her life when she was 13 and ‘abused me all my life’








