A girl sat on a needle that had been used by her father to take drugs in what could have been a “catastrophic” incident, Dublin District Family Court has heard.
The girl’s mother said multiple medical tests were carried out on her daughter, who is aged under 10, to ensure she had not contracted any serious blood-borne infections.
The girl’s father, who the woman claimed leaves drugs, needles and “crack pipes” around the house, had left a used needle on a bed and it pierced the child’s skin when she sat down.
The mother, who on Friday applied for a protection order, said she was worried for “months” while waiting to hear if her daughter had contracted an infection.
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She said her partner left the family home after the incident but returned some time later. She said he goes on “benders for days”, steals and roots through their belongings and is abusive. She added that his behaviour “scares the children”.
“He gets very angry,” she said. “He slams, bangs and breaks things, slagging and calling me names, threatening that he will get people to attack me and my (adult) daughter.”
Judge Gerard Furlong said he was granting the woman a temporary protection order “without hesitation” until the case is heard in full. He said the option of a barring order was open to her should she wish to apply for one.
“I am very concerned about the needle episode, that could have been catastrophic,” he said. “Drug habit is one thing but if apparatus and stuff is left around and there are young children, I can only empathise with the worries you have.”
In a separate case, an older man was granted a temporary barring order against his son, aged in his 30s, after an alleged violent incident.
The man said he was attacked after he told his son’s girlfriend, who was staying in their home with her children, to leave after an argument.
“He’s about 10 times stronger than me and he was punching and punching,” the man said of his son. “He’s so powerful, he dragged me up to the front door and pushed me out on to the street.”
The man, who said he was wearing a dressing gown at the time, told Judge Furlong he was out on the street on the ground and his son was “kicking and punching the head off me”.
The man said he told his son he was going to the local Garda station to report assault and was then pushed on to the ground and kicked and punched again.
When gardaí arrived, his son was no longer present, he said, although he did return late that night.
Asked why he did not contact gardaí on his son’s return, he said he did not want to “cause any more trouble in the house”.
Instead, the man went to an emergency department in the middle of the night to get his injuries examined. He said a doctor told him he was “lucky” there was no permanent damage to his head.
Having waited for five hours before being seen in hospital, the man said he decided to go directly to the court on Friday morning as he was “afraid to go home”.
“He’s too dangerous,” he said, adding that his son is “violent all the time”.
“This is not the first time, this has been going on for years.”
The man was granted a temporary barring order by Judge Furlong until a full hearing of the case, meaning his son will be removed from the property.
