Family Court orders ‘curfew’ on mobile phones for boys

Two young boys at the centre of a custody case are not to have their mobile phones after 7pm, a judge at the Dublin Circuit Family Court has ruled.

Ordering the "curfew", Judge Sarah Berkeley said children should not have mobile phones at night.

Her direction was part of an order granting primary care of the two boys to their father on an interim basis. She made the order having spoken to the two boys in her chambers.

The couple were separated and the boys had been living full-time with their father since early this year, the court was told.

Counsel for the mother said her client wanted to have the boys every other week. She complained that the father was allowing them to have their mobile phones for 24 hours and did not ensure their homework was completed. The father did not accept that.

Judge Berkeley said the boys were “very articulate” and knew what they wanted, which was to spend the majority of time with their father with whom they had “a strong bond”. They also wanted to see their younger brothers who lived with their mother.

Primary care

She ordered that the father should have primary care until a clinical psychologist assessed the boys and made recommendations. The boys’ mother was to collect them from school and mind them until their father collected them after work. They could “overnight” at their mother’s every other weekend, the judge said.

She adjourned the case to the new year.

Separately, at the Circuit Court, Judge Rosemary Horgan granted an interim barring order to a woman who was married for more than 15 years and had been seeking a separation from her husband for more than five years.

The woman’s counsel said her client’s case was “rare” for a domestic violence application as “physical violence wasn’t an issue”. It was the “emotional damage” caused to the woman and her children that was at issue.

The woman, shaking in the witness box, said her husband had “irrational outbursts” and “big anger issues”. She’d been in the relationship so long she had “turned a blind eye” and “turned off her ears”, she said.

Trapped in car

She described how she sat in the kitchen of the family home with her children while her husband sat in the sitting room and refused to let the children in. He had also taken her phone and told her she couldn’t ring her extended family and that he and the children were the only family she needed.

She alleged they had not slept in the same bed “for ages”, but when she issued proceedings for a judicial separation, “he insisted on lying in the bed”.

He also trapped her in the car with their children and wouldn’t let her out until she agreed to sign a paper saying she would “stop the solicitor”.

The court was told she had first tried to get a separation five years ago, but her husband had contacted her solicitor directly and the solicitor had ceased to act for her.

The woman was initially granted an emergency barring order, requiring her husband not to enter the family home, a week ago.

It was served on him with the help of gardaí. The woman said her husband got very irrational and took a knife out of his pocket and asked gardaí: “Am I allowed to bring that knife? I suppose I’m not.”

He was aware the case for a further barring order was going ahead, but did not appear in court. The woman told the judge she wanted to give her husband a chance to attend court on the next occasion.

Judge Horgan said the case was “extremely difficult”. She was satisfied there was an immediate risk of harm and granted an interim barring order for eight days.