*A protection order was granted.
A WOMAN sporting a black-eye in court has told a judge that the man, her partner, who gave her the black eye needs help.
At the Family Law Court in Ennis, Judge Alec Gabbett granted the woman a Protection Order under the Domestic Violence Act after she gave evidence of the alleged assault carried out on her by her partner last week.
After seeing the woman with the black eye as she entered the witness box, Judge Gabbett asked, “How are you? I can see what the issue is already. You have a fine black eye”.
Judge Gabbett said that the woman was looking for a Protection Order against her partner because he assaulted her on May 29th.
He said to her, “You called the Gardaí and you had to go to hospital for a CT scan as a result”.
Judge Gabbett asked, “Where else did he hit you? You are very swollen on your face. I can see it”.
Judge Gabbett asked was the relationship over with the man and she replied “No”.
Judge Gabbett said, “You are going back?” And the woman replied ‘yes’.
She said that her partner “needs help”.
Judge Gabbett said that the woman’s application was “very appropriate for a Protection Order and I will grant you the Protection Order in the circumstances”.
With the Protection Order in place, Gardaí can now arrest the man without warrant if the woman says there has been a breach of the order.
In a separate Protection Order application by another woman, Judge Gabbett granted the order after he was told that the woman’s ex-partner recently threatened to release private intimate videos to the public which caused the woman distress.
In her statement grounding her application, the woman said that the man following their break-up “turned up at my house and turned up at work unannounced”.
The woman said that the man told her that he would come to her town “and that I would pay for what I have done and I am in fear for my life”.
Judge Gabbett said, “In the circumstances you are in fear that he will come to your home and your work – he is not backing down is he”.
He added, “He is not stopping – even when the Gardaí intervene he keeps coming”.
Judge Gabbett said that he was happy to grant the Protection Order.
