A distraught young mother has appealed to a judge to help get her baby back from her former partner who allegedly “systematically abused” her since their child’s birth less than a year ago.
The woman told Judge Gerard Furlong on Friday afternoon the man had taken the baby the previous day without her consent, his phone is off and he had not returned the child. She believed he was “back on crack [cocaine]”, she said.
The judge told her she is sole custodian of the child and it was “tantamount to kidnapping” to take the baby without her consent.
Sitting at the emergency domestic violence court in Dolphin House, Dublin, the judge asked a court Garda to help the woman liaise with the relevant Garda station with a view to having the child returned to her care as soon as possible.
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The woman, now living in a hotel, was in court to seek an emergency protection order ex parte (one side only represented).
Sobbing, she told the judge the taking of her child was “the last straw” and getting the infant back was the “most important thing”.
She said the man had “systematically abused” her since she gave birth. He had broken up with her the day after their child was born “because he could not find a car seat”, she said.
The abuse “got worse and worse” and he would not let her go outside during hot summer days because she was “black and blue” with bruising on her arms, she said. “He would hit me with the child in my arms, he would tie my hands and beat me.”
She said he had beaten her in front of another child of his, aged under ten, who became very distressed and pleaded with him to stop. He choked her “to the point of unconsciousness” in front of the child, she said.
On one occasion, he told her she “talked too much” before shoving a TV remote control down her throat, causing bleeding, she said. She bled profusely after being hit around the head by him on a different occasion, she said.
On another occasion, he locked her into his house where they lived together for a time before she moved out earlier this year, she said. She said she broke a window and Tusla became involved.
Tusla was prepared to let her keep her own child, she said. After she said she was not prepared to leave the man’s home without the other child, Tusla took both children for a time but they were returned, the judge was told.
She left the man earlier this year and is living in hotel accommodation with the baby but the man arrived outside the hotel a number of times, she said.
He came to the hotel on Thursday night and took the baby, she said. “That was the final straw.”
She went to gardaí seeking to get the child back and was waiting around for four hours, she said. She had taken “a drink or two”, she told the judge. Gardaí later told her they had located the baby, that the child had food and nappies and advised her to go to the court, she said.
Judge Furlong said he had no hesitation in granting a protection order. Addressing her concern for the baby, he suggested she contact Tusla and the gardaí, telling her she is sole custodian of the child and should show the court’s order to the gardaí.
Having asked a court Garda to assist her, the judge told the weeping woman he would be “baffled” if the matter was not speedily resolved.
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