A woman whose former partner sent over 300 messages to her mobile phone in two weeks has said the abusive relationship destroyed her life.
The 34-year-old woman was the victim of harassment by her ex-boyfriend (41) between January 14th and January 29th, 2021.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard the accused, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the woman, gained access to the victim's email through their son's computer tablet while their two children were staying with him.
Email account
He found sexual imagery and an image of another man on this email account and called her at 1.30am to accuse her of texting another man and sending sexual images. The accused sent the images to her that he claimed were found on her email, calling her a “slut” and “sleazy”.
Garda Padraig Guinan told the court that 300 Whatsapp messages and 34 text messages were sent to the victim between 14th January and 29th January by the defendant. Messages were sent on a daily basis throughout the two weeks.
The man threatened to send the images to the close family of the victim. He was blocked on WhatsApp, but began texting her on a different messenger app instead, the court heard.
History of abuse
Garda Guinan told Caroline Latham BL prosecuting, there was a history of mental and physical abuse while they were in a relationship between 2011 to 2017.
The victim was granted a protection order against the accused in April 2020, but she said in court the abuse continued until a safety order was granted in December 2020.
The victim read out her victim impact statement, saying how she “was in total disbelief that this was happening to me.”
“I felt that I would never have a life and my life wasn’t worth living,” she said in her statement. “Only for the joy of my children, I don't think I will be in court today.”
The victim said she had constant heart palpitations, weight loss due to an issue with eating, and a lack of confidence after the incident, reading from her statement.
The court heard she felt ashamed of the images and “I felt my human rights were stripped away from me.”
She was prescribed medication to treat her depression from February to December 2021.
She said in her statement she still feels worried about what happened and “he has destroyed the best part of me.”
The accused pleaded guilty to harassment. He has seven previous convictions with the latest offence occurring on November 19th, 2012.
Judge Elma Sheahan adjourned the case to October 6th and ordered a probation report for that date.
