Wife of drunken man who punched her sees future with him

A drunken man texted his wife to say he would torch the house if she didn’t come home with wine and tobacco, and later when she returned, he assaulted her by punching her in the forehead and twice in the face.

“His wife does not want to see him going to prison for this. She hopes there is a future with him without drink and believes that he is a totally different man when sober,” Det Sgt Seán Leahy testified at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Gerard Harrington, aged around 40, from Valley View, Bilberry, Midleton, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing harm to his wife on July 10. On two occasions in the month before this, he made threats to kill men in his wider family and to set a house on fire. He also pleaded guilty to those charges.