Mother rearing addict son’s children alleges threat to ‘burn us out’

A woman who took on rearing her adult son’s young children because of their parents’ drug addiction got a protection order against her son after he allegedly threatened to “burn us out”.Her son and his partner are drug addicts who are “on everything”, and she and her husband have been rearing their children for more than two years now, she told the emergency domestic violence court at Dolphin House in Dublin. The children are doing much better, the school reports are “great”, and Tusla has told her it has closed the children’s file and is very happy with their progress since they moved in with her, she said.Her son and his partner live nearby and are constantly coming to her home demanding money for drugs, she said. READ MOREHer son is “very abusive”, threatening to do things “like burn us out”, if money is not forthcoming, she said. In recent days, he smashed a window in her home while she was inside, she said. His drug abuse has been going on for years, she said. She has obtained guardianship of the children, but their children’s allowance payments continue to be collected by their mother, she said, adding she is seeking to change that. Judge Gerard Furlong said he would, “without hesitation”, grant the protection order.The application was one of several made ex parte (with one side only represented) under the Domestic Violence Act before the judge on Friday. Due to industrial action by public sector workers, two of the five courts in the Dolphin House complex were unable to sit, leading to multiple case adjournments. Other applications included separate ones by a mother against her adult son and daughter.The woman said she asked her son, aged in his 30s, to leave her home about two years ago due to conflict between him and her partner. After her partner was assaulted in her home by several people, some of whom were masked, she became ill, she said. While she was in hospital, her son moved back in without her permission and she asked him to move out because she was returning home and wanted her partner with her, she said. Her son verbally and physically abused her, including slapping her in the mouth, threatening to cut her throat and “make our lives a living hell”, she said. He called her “horrendous” names and grabbed her house keys and jewellery “while choking me”, and she had soiled herself while this was happening, she said. Gardaí were called and had advised her to seek protection from the courts, she said. “I don’t feel safe, I fear for my life and for my partner’s.”The judge granted an interim barring order against the son. The woman also got a protection order against her adult daughter, aged in her 40s, over alleged verbal threats made by her after she arrived at her mother’s home to collect her brother’s belongings.Another woman who recently left her husband got a protection order against him over alleged threatening behaviour. He drinks alcohol every night and uses cocaine every two days, and his drug use led to him being hospitalised during a previous family holiday abroad, she said.She was subjected to coercive control for some two years, including him monitoring a home doorbell camera daily and threatening to hit her if she visited her mother and sister, she said. She left him recently and is living at a confidential address with their young children, but he is threatening to take the children and telling her she will never see them again, she said. He had threatened to smash the house up and she was obliged to block him “on everything”, she said.In another application, a woman said she was in a relationship for a time with a man whom she first met a few months ago. She tried to break up with him a few times over the past month, “but he did not let me do it”. He wanted to come over to her apartment in recent days, but she told him she was not feeling well and not to come. He had arrived anyway and started trying to break in, she said. She eventually opened the door, and he started fighting with her, and she has bruises as a result, she said.She wanted “to run away” and took up her laptop and headphones, but he smashed them, she said. Her neighbours called gardaí and, before they arrived, she compelled the man to leave her home. The man is now blaming her for that and is still calling and texting her, she said. Furlong granted a protection order.