Man left partner with permanent facial scar after assault

By Eimear Dodd

A new mother left with a permanent facial scar after her then partner assaulted her has told a court his actions turned what should have the “happiest time” of her life into a “nightmare”.

The woman read her victim impact statement at Dublin Circuit Court yesterday as the man was jailed for 20 months.

She said she has been left with a permanent scar on her face and also lost a front tooth following the assault in May 2023.

The woman said the man has “never shown any remorse or care for what he did to me”.

She said the last two and half years have been the worst of her life, describing them as “torture”.

She said the man’s decision to change his plea shortly before a trial date “clarified his personality” for her.

She described him as “controlling, manipulative, abusive and violent”.

She said he took the first few months of her child’s life, a period which should have been “happiest time of my life” and “turned it into a nightmare”.

She said she now wants to heal and create a safe place for her child.

The 34-year-old man pleaded guilty to making a threat to kill or cause serious harm and to assault causing harm on a date in May 2023.

He has 26 previous convictions including three for breaches under the Domestic Violence Act, road traffic and public order offences.

One of the breaches of the Domestic Violence Act relate to this injured party, the court was told.

The Dublin man cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court heard the man struck the woman, causing one of her teeth to fall out. He also threatened the woman in a message sent to her sister.

“I’m telling you now if she stayed here now you will be identifying her body in a morgue”.

Following his arrest, the man said to gardai “I’ll rape your women when I get them”.

Judge Martin Nolan said the man punched the victim “pretty savagely” and made “very credible threats” against her.

The woman was “terrified of him and obviously for a period of time, he ruined her life,” the judge said.

He said it was aggravating that the man has previous relevant convictions and that the assault took place in the context of an intimate relationship.

Having considered the mitigation, Judge Nolan said the man’s behaviour was “too serious” to avoid a custodial sentence.

He imposed a sentence of two years and reduced it to 20 months to give the man credit for time already spent in custody.

A local garda told Tessa White BL, prosecuting, that the man and the woman had been in a relationship for several years at the time and had a young baby together.

The court heard gardai were called to an urgent incident and while on route, they were flagged down by the injured party, who had visible facial injuries and appeared very distressed.

The woman told them that she and the man had been arguing and he told her to move out. She was holding their baby in her arms, and she asked him to stop and walked away.

The man’s older daughter, then aged nine, was present during the argument and she asked him to calm down, saying she wanted to leave.

When the woman turned back, he swung at her with a closed fist. One of her front teeth was knocked out, the court heard.

The woman left the house, contacting the older child’s mother and the man’s mother.

The man was interviewed, but nothing of evidential value was obtained. He was in custody for 11 weeks following his arrest before obtaining bail.

The man entered guilty pleas in advance of a trial date earlier this year.

The investigating garda agreed that all of the man’s previous convictions have been at the District Court.

He accepted that the man is working full time and now lives with a new partner and their young child.

The garda also agreed that the man has a drug addiction and has been engaging with treatment services.

It was further accepted that the man had €5,000 available as a token of remorse.

In her victim impact statement, the woman also outlined that she has sustained “permanent mental scars”, and has suffered psychological effects following this incident including flashbacks and nightmares.

The woman said she is no longer the “outgoing, bubbly and social” person that she was before this happened.

“He stole that from me”.

“Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of what [he] did”, she said, adding that she doesn’t recognise the person she sees in the mirror.

“He took that from me,” she said, adding that she is a “shadow of her former self”.

She said she and her child had to move to secure emergency accommodation following this incident as she was “terrified he’d find me and follow through on the threat to kill”.

She said the man used a white van for work and she would freeze any time she saw one in the months following this incident.

She said she felt she couldn’t do simple things such as going for a walk in the months afterwards and relied on family to assist her.

She said she obtained an emergency safety order following this incident, then a five-year safety order.

Defence counsel said the man is ashamed of his conduct and has instructed him to apologise for his conduct.

He asked the court to take into account the offer of a token of remorse, the man’s work history and efforts to address his addiction issues.

Counsel said the man was intoxicated at the time of the offence, but has now been sober for two years.

He said his client “must live with the shame” of his behaviour, but is “trying to be a better person”.

Judge Nolan said the court was not going to deal with the issue of the token of remorse, as the man was to be jailed “he wouldn’t be a in a position to earn those monies”.