Man jailed at Cork court for threatening to pour boiling water over ex-partner

A Cork man has been jailed for putting his ex-partner in fear by threatening to pour boiling water over her and to choke her as soon as she fell asleep.

A catalogue of incidents was outlined at an in camera hearing of Cork District Court where he pleaded guilty to several breaches of a protection order by putting her in fear.

Sergeant Gearóid Davis outlined a whole series of incidents where the young woman was put in fear by her ex-partner.

· He threatened, “I’ll box the head off you.” · He insulted her, calling her “a whore, a tramp and a slut” and accused her of sleeping with a number of other people.

· He threw a vase in her direction as she went upstairs to bed and it smashed against the bathroom door.

· He took a remote control from her hand and she believed he was going to hit her with it but he smashed it against a wall.

· He held a kettle over her head and poured water on her but the water was not hot.

· He told her that as soon as she fell asleep he was going to choke her.

· In a row about money he told her, “Don’t think I am paying to get your lips and teeth done.” 

The accused pleaded guilty to breaching the protection order on five occasions, repeatedly failing to turn up in court, threatening gardaí and being drunk and a danger.

Frank Buttimer, solicitor, said, the defendant is a man who had only one minor previous conviction at the age of 29 and had been involved in a normal type of relationship with the complainant for several years.

“But he went from zero to a hundred in a short period of time. The relationship was normal for a number of years. Then there were tensions and difficulties which led to alcohol consumption. I am not going to talk about the injured party but the defendant’s drinking became a difficult problem for him in all of the incidents which occurred.

“He sought to engage in treatment. He accepts he has behaved badly towards his former partner and he is going to remain in custody as a result,” Mr Buttimer said.

'RUNNING AMOK'

Judge Olann Kelleher imposed a total jail term of ten months, commenting, “This lady has had an incredibly difficult time over the last eleven months. From the outline given by Sergeant Davis, they were really horrific. That he would do this to his partner. There were all these violent acts and she did not deserve all this physical abuse.

“He was obviously running amok. He had no respect for his partner or the courts,” Judge Kelleher said.

The judge imposed a ten-month jail term for the five breaches the protection order.

Sergeant Gearóid Davis also outlined incidents where the young woman was in bed and the defendant arrived in the house in a drunken condition, pulled the duvet off her and slapped her with pillows even though she told him that she had an early start for work. When she went downstairs and sat on the couch he pulled the large cushions from the couch and hit her with them.

Other offences committed by the accused included driving a friend’s car without permission and being threatening towards gardaí, calling them “handicaps and spastics”, during a recent incident.