Man kidnapped former partner after barring order

A man has been convicted of kidnapping the mother of his children in Longford after she obtained a barring order again him.

A Central Criminal Court jury returned the guilty verdict after over five hours of deliberations. Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on allegations the man raped the woman during the ordeal and that he subjected her to extreme domestic abuse in their five-year relationship.

Ms Justice Carmel Stewart remanded him in custody until next month when the prosecution will indicate whether it wants a retrial on the outstanding counts.

The two-week trial heard allegations from the 29-year-old woman that the man beat and threatened her throughout their relationship before she decided to leave him.

The allegations included that he locked the woman and their children in a rat-infested, flooded apartment for hours. She alleged he urinated on her and her son and held her head underwater in the bath.

The woman alleged he forced her to drink a pint of milk and slapped her whenever she split a drop.

The accused, who is the father of her children, pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape, false imprisonment, and production of an article in November 2015, and three counts of assault causing harm between 2011 and 2015. A charge of breaching a barring order and one count of assault did not proceed.

The woman told Brendan Grehan, prosecuting, she decided to leave her partner for good after he threatened to “put the teeth down your throat” when she asked if she could go to the gym.

She left him for good then, taking the children to her sister’s. She also obtained a barring order against him.

Michael Bowman, defending, put it to the woman during cross-examination that the accusations of rape and assault were not true. She said they were. She agreed with counsel that she did love the accused at one time.

“He could change, he could be as nice as pie to me,” she said. “He could be the best partner in the world and then he could just change.”

Referring to a specific allegation, Mr Bowman said that “while there were certainly difficulties in the relationship and it was far from perfect, my client does not accept he threatened you with a knife or carried out the other four assaults you mentioned”.

The woman replied: “This is a man who dangled me over a river after I gave birth to my babies.”