A MAN who struck his wife with a livestock whip when she was holding an infant in her arms has been jailed for a year having pleaded guilty to a charge of coercive control.

The Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork heard that over a period of 20 years the man punched the woman in the face, caught her by the throat and knocked her to the ground when she was pregnant.

The victim in the case said that he once referred to their home and stated : “I will burn you in it you c*** before you live in it.” This is when she temporarily left him and he thought she might end up living without him in the family home.

The Kerry man constantly checked up on his wife by sending her texts which she had to immediately respond to and if she was “allowed to go somewhere it came with conditions.” He subjected the woman to what she described as daily “torture.”

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, initially believed that he was the victim in the case. He told the probation service that he was being blamed for everything.

He spoke of having traditional values and detailed a family history of having a short fuse by way of providing an explanation for his behaviour. He has since expressed remorse.

The offending related to his behaviour from 1 January 2019 to 8 September 2020.

However, this was only because this was the only period in which his abuse was covered under the then newly introduced coercive control law.

The woman told the man she was leaving him for good in September 2020 and the abuse ended then.

The 50-year-old had subjected his wife to “relentless and torturous” physical and verbal abuse over a period of two decades.

He would blame her if she had her period when he wanted to have sex and made regular sexual demands of her.

The woman indicated that she freezes at the memory of her now ex-husband hissing the word “c**t” at her.

Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford was told that the victim, who is in her 40s, wished she was dead during the lengthy campaign of abuse towards her.

The man hurled the abusive term c**t at her on numerous occasions.

The woman opted to make a victim impact statement. 

She said that her life was a constant cycle of being degraded. Her husband was always mocking her appearance and weight and he undermined and criticised her every effort in life.

She recalled that on one occasion when she refused to have sex with him, he said that she had “energy for everything else” and that he was “well down the list.”

The man also had an affair and sent a text to his then wife instead of the woman he was seeing. When she read the text she was on a holiday with her in laws.

The woman said that she spent a lot of time crying her bedroom as the foul language towards her never stopped.

“It is so difficult to put into words the full extent and effect of coercive control – but the two words I would use are relentless and tortuous.

“The constant critical and demeaning running commentary in everything I did – the name-calling never stopped.”

He controlled who I could be friends with and tried to turn me against my own family.”

She said that her husband tried to isolate her and control who she did or didn’t see. 

“Everyone was walking on eggshells (around him). If he was not happy, then nobody could be happy.”

“Even if he was 200 miles away he would still have the ability to instil fear in me. I would give into his demands just to have peace in the house. No matter what I did it was never good enough.

“I was exhausted from trying to please.”

“I was stuck in a vicious pattern of control. I started to realise that all his actions were premeditated. I became a shell of myself.”

The woman said that she had considered ending her life by suicide.

“I thought about taking my own life. I thought I would be better off dead. I just could not take it any more.

“I could not continue to live this way. I knew I had to leave the relationship for my children. I did not bring children into this world to be living the way we were living.”

“It was my children that gave me the strength and courage to end the relationship.”

The man who has four previous convictions, and who previously spent time in prison arising from a fatal incident, admitted that he “knowingly and persistently engage in behaviour that was controlling and coercive with the intention of having a serious effect on the relevant person.”

Defence barrister Brendan Grehan SC, told the court that his client had self referred to a programme called Men Overcoming Violent Emotions (MOVE).

Mr Grehan stressed that there wasn’t “any exemption for (the family) temper under the law.”

Ms Justice Lankford commended the victim in the case for her “courage” in the face of adversity. She set a headline sentence of two and a half years. Taking the plea and his remorse in to consideration the judge jailed the man for 18 months suspending the final six months of the sentence.

The man has to contact the probation service if he enters in to a new relationship. The service will then inform the new partner of his conviction. He also has to abide by all the directions of the probation service including attending for assessments and relevant treatment.