A man in his 50s has seen a charge of breaching a safety order against him dismissed, after a judge said she could not accept the complainant’s evidence due to inaccuracies in her account.
The accused had denied a charge that in June 2024 in South Dublin, he breached a Safety Order contrary to Section 33(1) of the Domestic Violence Act 2018.
Dún Laoghaire District Court heard that the parties, who are separated, met that day for a handover of their children in a car park.
The complainant alleged that the accused was verbally abusive towards her and that further contact by phone calls and voice notes afterwards amounted to a breach of the Safety Order.
She told the court there had been a dispute over a pair of the children’s tracksuit bottoms which had gone missing during the handover.
The complainant alleged the accused called her a “junkie slut” and told her she did not deserve to be the children’s mother in front of them.
“I’ve never been so embarrassed or put down in my life”, she told the court.
During cross-examination, defence counsel Silvia Maria Crowley BL put it to the complainant that her new partner had been present in the car park at the time and assaulted the accused during the incident.
The complainant strongly denied this and insisted the assault Ms Crowley was referring to had occurred on a different date.
However it was confirmed in court, following garda checks, that the woman’s partner had pleaded guilty to assaulting the accused arising from the same incident on the date in June 2024.
The court also heard that voice notes from the complainant’s phone were not in chronological order and could not be relied upon as evidence.
In her ruling, Judge Anne Watkin said she could not rely on the complainant’s evidence and dismissed the charge.