A WOMAN who was kicked punched, and had bunches of her hair pulled out by her neighbour said that two years after the incident she still suffered from panic attacks and the fear of isolation.
Ms Pauline McCarthy, from Cork Street, Kinsale, was giving evidence in the High Court in Cork, where her neighbours, Frances and Thomas Dunne, and their son, Thomas jnr, are appealing a Circuit Court award of £21,000 damages for injuries Ms McCarthy received in an assault in April 1994.
The ill feeling between the neighbours resulted from an objection by the McCarthys to a planning application by the Dunnes for three houses at their property in Kinsale. They were granted permission for one house by An Bord Pleanala.
Mr Justice Barr said that when there were objections to planning applications there were serious financial implications, and it was quite understandable the Dunnes would feel aggrieved because the objection was harmful to their interest in developing their property. However, this did not justify the nature of the assault on Ms McCarthy, the judge added.
In evidence, Ms McCarthy said Thomas Dunne jnr was standing on the wall of her back garden ready, she believed, to jump over it. His parents were standing on a picnic table in their garden "overpowering me".
"Her husband was terrorising me, telling me he would kill my husband," she said. She said she decided to inform gardai as she believed her family was in immediate danger. When she went out to the street, the three Dunnes approached her.
"I did not think they would be so evil and vicious as to try and stop me going for the guards, but I was caught by the top of the head and swung around. I bounced off the bonnet of a car and fell to the ground," Ms McCarthy said.
She said she was beaten around the head and the face, and lumps of hair were pulled out. When she managed to get into the house she was bruised and injured and her brother in law decided he would take her to hospital.
When they got into the car, the Dunnes stood in a row across the street to stop them and they had to reverse down the road.
Ms McCarthy said she was still attending a psychologist and had been on medication since the assault. She was afraid to go shopping without her husband. Since the assault, she had been intimidated and terrorised further by the Dunnes, she told the court.
She said she was called a bitch when tourists were around and she was embarrassed. On another occasion she was called scum. She said Ms Dunne threatened her that the next time she finished with her she would have a long stay in hospital.
Mr Justice Barr is assessing damages only. He said the assaults had been conceded in previous district and circuit court hearings.
The case continues today.