The man subjected his wife to ‘relentless and torturous’ physical and verbal abuse for two decades, including punching her in the face and knocking her down while pregnant, the court in Cork heard
A man who hit his wife with a livestock whip while she was holding an infant has been jailed for a year.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to a charge of coercive control after he subjected his wife to “relentless and torturous” physical and verbal abuse over a period of two decades, a court has heard.
The Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Ireland heard that over a period of 20 years the man punched the woman in the face, caught her by the throat and knocked her to the ground when she was pregnant.
The victim told the hearing that he threatened to burn her in their home when she temporarily left him and he thought she might live in the house without him.
The Kerry man also barraged his wife with text messages which she had to immediately respond to and if she was “allowed to go somewhere it came with conditions.” He subjected the woman to what she described as daily “torture,” CorkBeo reports.
The man initially believed he was the victim in the case and told the probation service that he was being blamed for everything. He said he had traditional values and explained his behavior by saying he had a family history of having a short fuse. He has since expressed remorse.
His offences covered a period from January 1 2019 to September 8 2020, as this is when the then newly-introduced coercive control law came into force in Ireland. The woman told the man she was leaving him for good in September 2020 and the abuse ended then.
The 50-year-old had subjected his wife to “relentless and torturous” physical and verbal abuse over a period of two decades.
He would blame her if she had her period when he wanted to have sex and made regular sexual demands of her. The woman indicated that she freezes at the memory of her now ex-husband hissing the word “c**t” at her. Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford was told that the victim, who is in her forties, wished she was dead during the lengthy campaign of abuse towards her.
In a victim impact statement the woman said her life was a constant cycle of being degraded. Her husband was always mocking her appearance and weight and he undermined and criticised her every effort in life.
She recalled that on one occasion when she refused to have sex with him he said that she had “energy for everything else” and that he was “well down the list.” The man also had an affair and sent a text to his then wife instead of the woman he was seeing. When she read the text she was on a holiday with her in laws.
The woman said that she spent a lot of time crying in her bedroom as the foul language towards her never stopped. “It is so difficult to put into words the full extent and effect of coercive control – but the two words I would use are relentless and tortuous,” she said.
“The constant critical and demeaning running commentary in everything I did – the name calling never stopped. He controlled who I could be friends with and tried to turn me against my own family.” She said that her husband tried to isolate her and control who she did or didn’t see.
“Everyone was walking on eggshells (around him). If he was not happy, then nobody could be happy. Even if he was 200 miles away he would still have the ability to instill fear in me. I would give into his demands just to have peace in the house. No matter what I did it was never good enough.
“I was exhausted from trying to please. I was stuck in a vicious pattern of control. I started to realise that all his actions were premeditated. I became a shell of myself.” The woman said that she had considered ending her life by suicide. “I thought about taking my own life. I thought I would be better off dead. I just could not take it anymore.”
“I could not continue to live this way. I knew I had to leave the relationship for my children. I did not bring children into this world to be living the way we were living. It was my children that gave me the strength and courage to end the relationship.”
The man, who has four previous convictions and who previously spent time in prison arising from a fatal incident, admitted that he “knowingly and persistently engaged in behaviour that was controlling and coercive with the intention of having a serious effect on the relevant person.”
Defence barrister Brendan Grehan SC, told the court that his client had self referred to a programme called Men Overcoming Violent Emotions (MOVE).
Ms Justice Lankford commended the victim in the case for her “courage” in the face of adversity. She set a headline sentence of two and a half years. Taking the plea and his remorse into consideration the judge jailed the man for 18 months suspending the final six months of the sentence.
For confidential support, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Freephone Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit womensaid.co.uk. If you or your family have lost a friend or family member through fatal domestic abuse, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) can offer specialist and expert support and advocacy. For more info visit www.aafda.org.uk.
