Mother gets barring order against son

• Published date: 15 April 2024
• Author: MARY CAROLAN
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

She said her son, who previously served a prison term, is threatening and abusive to her and drug dealers are coming to her home threatening her over his debts. She fears he “will kill me or someone will burn the house down”, she said. “I can’t take it any more, I am in a constant state of fear. Even the dog is afraid of him.”

This situation was going on for years, her son appeared “a bit more normal” while in prison but “it all started again” when he got out, she said.

She obtained an interim barring order earlier this month but her son came to her house in recent days and smashed glass in a door trying to get in, she said. She locked herself into the house and called the Garda.

Judge Gerard Furlong, sitting on Thursday at the emergency domestic violence court in Dolphin House, Dublin, said he would grant a three-year barring order and recommend the man seek treatment.

Aged in her 60s, the woman was one of four parents, two mothers and two fathers, who separately got barring or protection orders against their adult children at the court sitting.

In one of those applications, a separated man living with his elderly mother, got an interim barring order against his adult son.

Slashed

His son has threatened to kill him and his mother, to burn her house down and smash the windows, has slashed the tyres of his car and keeps coming around to the house, he said. His son had told him he “wants my head on a stick and will get his gun and blow me away”, he said.

He does not know if his son has a gun, he told the judge, and suspects he may have an addiction to tablets.

In a different application, a man obtained a protection order against his wife whom he said has been a “compulsive gambler” over years who becomes “hostile and threatening” when she loses money at gambling. His wife has “spells” where she can be out of the house for two or three days gambling and, when she wins, she gives him and the...