A LIMERICK worker who claimed his wife beat him around the head with a slipper, tore off his clothes and poured hot water on his face, has had his application for a Safety Order against her refused.
At a Family Law Court in Ennis today, the woman told Judge Alec Gabbett that she agreed with the allegations against her and said that she was angry after learning about her husband’s affair with another woman.
Dismissing the Safety Order application, Judge Gabbett said it was a case of an unfortunate marital break-up where an affair was had. He added that the man works in Limerick and the couple are married for more than ten years with children.
Telling the woman “there is no order against you, the case is finished”, Judge Gabbett said of the case: “It is disappointing it is even here to be honest.”
In his statement applying for the Safety Order, the man stated that “my spouse is constantly abusing me, threatening me mentally, physically and verbally”.
He said that his wife “keeps threatening to kill me or kill herself” or make a complaint to immigration and put him behind bars and ruin his life.
“On Sunday, November 20, she attacked me with a sharp pen tip all over my body and tore my shirt and slapped me and hit me on the head with her fist in front of the children.
“Three weeks before that, she completely tore my clothes, made me naked and poured hot water over my face and verbally abused me.”
Asked to comment by Judge Gabbett, the woman said: “I agree. He is having an affair and I am very angry about that.”
The man claimed that his wife drugged him in order to access his smart phone using his finger print to see pictures of his girlfriend.
The woman denied this stating that she accessed his phone as she knew his password.
She replied ‘yes’ when Judge Gabbett asked her “you proved he had an affair because he had pictures on his phone of a naked woman?”
Judge Gabbett asked the man “does your wife feel betrayed? Do you think there is a reason she might be cross?”
In reply, the man said: “I apologised to her so many times.”
Asked if he was still having an affair, the man replied “No, your honour.”
However, his wife said that her husband wants to stay with his girlfriend and have children with her. The woman said that she was told about the affair by a colleague of her husband’s.
The man said that his wife would grab a slipper and hit him on the head, face and body with it.
Asked if she used any other weapons, the man said “she goes into the kitchen and grabs a knife and says “I want to kill you” in front of the children.
Although she said her husband “used to spit in her face and use a belt,” she told Judge Gabbett: “I don’t want any separation. I want to live with him”.
