Woman guilty of assault on ex husband’s partner

COURT HEARS OF BAD BLOOD BETWEEN TWO ENNISCORTHY WOMEN

MARIA O’Neill (39) of 56 Bellefield Springs in Enniscorthy was held guilty of an assault on the woman who is now the partner of her estranged husband.

Gorey District Court was given extended evidence of the bad blood between Ms O’Neill and Natasha Kavanagh (38) of 46 The Orchard, Enniscorthy.

Not only did the pair have a fight at the home of Mick O’Connor at 104 Cluain Buí on December 8 last but they had also exchanged abusive texts and they accused each other of ‘keying’ the paintwork on each other’s vehicles.

In court on November 16, they denied charges of assaulting each other during the altercation at Cluain Buí.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Gerard Haughton put the blame on mother of twins Ms O’Neill, observing that she still felt the hurt of her husband leaving her to live with someone else.

He pointed out that the house where the fight occurred was not her home and she had been asked to leave several times.

Hostilities began after both women were driving around the Bohreen Hill roundabout at around 9 a.m. on the morning in question.

Ms Kavanagh told how she blew her horn and sent Ms O’Neill a text as she felt that O’Neill had cut across her.

Shortly afterwards, her partner’s estranged wife appeared at the door of the house in Cluain Buí.

According to the Kavanagh version of events, she was pushed and slapped by the caller.

She told how she lost a shank of hair, adding that she was kicked in the stomach before she found herself in a head lock.

Kavanagh told how she made her assailant release her grip by bending back her fingers before pushing her back out the door.

‘I was defending myself,’ the witness told the court. Her baby was in the house at the time.

Ms Kavanagh said she was called a ‘home wrecking whore’ by the other party and that her baby had been described as ‘the child you went out of your way to have’.

Ms O’Neill claimed that she did not strike the first blow and revealed that she sustained permanent damage to her little finger which required the insertion of a surgical pin at Waterford Regional.

‘She is totally torturing me the last three years,’ said O’Neill.

The court was given a flavour of the texts exchanged by the women.

Ms O’Neill had addressed Ms Kavanagh as a ‘lying ****ing skank’ in one message, while ‘acne scarface’ was a phrase used in the other direction.

The judge urged that it would be best if both the protagonists would get on with their lives.

He dismissed the assault charge against Natasha Kavanagh.

He found Maria O’Neill guilty of assault but then struck out the charge against after she undertook not to send any more texts to the other woman.

She was warned that, if the gardaí have any cause for concern over the coming 12 months, then they could bring the charge back to court.