By Eimear Dodd
A man who harassed the woman he was having an affair with later assaulted his partner, a court has heard.
The 34-year old man pleaded guilty to charges including harassment, trespass, two counts of breaching a protection order, common assault and assault causing harm.
He was yesterday jailed at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for 21 months. He cannot be named for legal reasons.
The court heard the first victim contacted gardai in September 2022, telling them that the man had breached a protection order.
This woman said she broke up with the man in early July 2022 and got a protection order against him later that month as he was threatening her and putting her in fear.
Evidence was heard that the man was texting the woman non-stop and sending her messages through the Revolut app after she blocked him and his number on other platforms.
An investigating garda said the man sent the woman a “couple of hundred” messages between July and August 2022.
In these messages, he asked the woman to meet him and asked her to reply to him. There were also threatening messages, suggesting the man would harm himself or her.
The man would also turn up at the woman’s house unannounced, the court heard.
In one incident in mid-July, he went to her house and went down the side of her house, knocking on her kitchen window after she didn’t let him in.
During the incident, he pushed open her front door and it ricocheted, catching the woman’s hand.
In a victim impact statement, the woman said she spent €1,200 on improved CCTV and an alarm system.
She said the man’s behaviour left a deep psychological scar and her life has changed massively “as a result of his relentless offending”.
She said she now has trust issues, is more conscious of her surroundings and checks to see if he is there.
She said her home was “like a sealed box” for a time and she had to carry a phone with a direct line to gardai, such was the risk it was felt the man posed to her.
She said her relationship with the man lasted just over one year, but its effects will stay with her for a lifetime.
The man has previous convictions, including for a breach of a safety order in relation to this victim, for which he received a six-month sentence.
An investigating garda agreed with Sarah-Jane O’Callaghan BL, defending, that there has been no contact between him and the injured party since this offending occurred.
In relation to the second victim, gardai were called to her home in early September 2022.
Evidence was heard the second woman and the man had been in a relationship for about eight years and were living together.
She told gardai she’d broken up with the man the day before, after finding out about his affair with the first victim.
She packed his clothes in black bags. He then told her he would pack up her clothes, leave them at her mother’s and see how she liked that.
She started to text her father, but the man grabbed her arm tightly.
During the assault, he pulled her hair back, tripped her up, then kicked her leg leaving bruises.
She grabbed him by his testicles and he released her. The man was shouting at her and also punched a door, leaving a hole in it.
He scratched her leg and chest. The man shouted at her to get upstairs and pack her bags, before dragging her upstairs by her hair.
The woman’s parents arrived and he shouted at them. He left the house and was later arrested.
The garda witness agreed with counsel he was aware of the “unfortunate triangle” of the man’s relationships with both women.
It was further accepted that the man has complied with his bail conditions and that he is from a pro-social family.
Ms O’Callaghan told the court that her client had written letters to the two women, in which he apologises for his “deplorable” behaviour.
She said the women are both “totally innocent” and individually believed they were in a loving committed relationship with the man, who has left a “trail of destruction”.
Counsel said her instructions are that everything “fell apart” when one injured party threatened to tell the other. Her client instructs he was taking steroids, cocaine and drink at the time, and his faculties were impacted.
She said her client accepts he behaved in an “utterly egregious manner”, which was “down to fear that his life was coming apart”, as a result of his own recklessness.
The man is now in a new relationship. Letters from his new partner, family members and his employer were handed in to court.
Ms O’Callaghan submitted that her client acted impulsively and irrationally. He has been attending counselling and engaging with services to deal with his addiction to cocaine. Clean urine analysis was provided to the court.
Ms O’Callaghan said her client is remorseful and asked the court for as much leniency as possible.
Judge Martin Nolan said it was the man’s relationships were “his own business”, adding that “what was not his own business is that he embarked upon criminal misbehaviour”.
He noted the impact of the offending on the two women. Having considered the mitigation, Judge Nolan said the man had to face a custodial sentence for his “entire misbehaviour”.
He imposed a global sentence of 21 months and directed the man to have no contact with the first victim for 15 years.