Cork court told man charged with coercive control threw partner's rabbit against wall 'to see if it would fly'

A family’s pet rabbit was flung against the wall by a man who has now been jailed for two years for coercive control over his partner where he carried out a litany of actions designed to humiliate and overpower her.

Sergeant Joseph Lee investigated the case against Robert Fedyna, who previously lived in West Cork, and described a litany of offences.

· When the injured party returned home from a Christmas party without her key he made her lie down on the mat outside the house in the cold and beg to be allowed in. He left her lying there for two minutes.

· For a period of months her phone was confiscated by him – wrapped in tinfoil and buried in the garden. When he told her where it was buried he watched her dig to retrieve it and laughed at her as she did so.

· Robert Fedyna would check the odometer on the car to keep tabs on how far she was travelling. When he forbade her to use the car at all on one occasion she got up at 4am to walk 16km to work, which took her four-and-a-half hours.

· He regularly called her insulting names.

· He made her withdraw her wages from an ATM as soon as they were lodged in her account and he gave her a meagre allowance for essentials.

· He forced her to borrow from a friend and then refused to give her money to repay the debt and this was done in one of a number of efforts to alienate her from her friends.

Robert Fedyna was sentenced to two-and-a-half years with the last six months suspended by Judge Dermot Sheehan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. The coercive control charge related to a period between January 2019 and June 2020.

The judge directed in relation to publication of details of the case that the accused man could be named.

BEG LIKE A DOG

It was in June 2020 that the injured party made the complaint to gardaí. 

At Cork Circuit Criminal Court her victim impact statement was read on her behalf by Sergeant Joseph Lee. In it, the victim addressed her ex-partner directly in her victim impact statement.

“You made me lie on the doormat and beg like a dog to be let it. You took all my money. Every holidays, every trip was a nightmare. We all did everything just to make you happy. Remember when you threw our rabbit to see if it could fly and broke its legs?

“You kept accusing me of cheating, but meanwhile, you were always scheming on the side.

“I've always been afraid of you, and I probably always will, but I'm stronger now. It's because of you that every knock on the door, every doorbell from an unexpected visitor causes fear.

“It's because of you that I don't answer calls from unknown numbers. It's because of you that I constantly turn around when someone follows me in the street.

“You kicked me out of the house. You're a pure coward. There are so many things I'd like to say, but it's a waste of my time on someone like you. You lied to (mutual friend) that I was a liar, that I stole €25,000 from you.

“Remember when you beat me up at work? In front of customers. I don't have the words to say everything, to express all my feelings, to remain polite and not get carried away by emotions.

"Don't think I'm not in court today because I'm afraid of you, no. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not here out of respect for the judge, out of respect for Joe, the Garda officer, out of self-respect. I’m afraid my emotions would overwhelm my reason and I would be asked to leave the courtroom.

“I want the whole world to know what a scoundrel you are and for the whole world to know that I'm not afraid of you anymore.

“When someone comes over, I don't want them to stay long, and conversely, when I leave, I don't want to stay long either, because I still have the feeling that someone will be angry with me, that there will be a fight when I come back. 

"I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm constantly surrounded by fear -fear without any justification, except that I was once in a relationship with you.

“My wish is to never see you again in my life. Never. That's it. The last minutes of my time dedicated to you.”