Former garda jailed for his campaign of ‘horror’ against ex and stepsons
Survivor describes domestic violence as ‘reign of terror’
A FORMER garda who put his ex-wife and stepsons through ‘horror after horror’ over a 12year period has been jailed for six years.
Mark Doyle, 38, with a previous address at Corbally Paddocks, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, admitted five counts of assault causing harm to Meav McLoughlin-Doyle and two counts of assaulting two of her sons, on dates between September 2007 and August 2019.
Doyle, who had been stationed at Ronanstown, Blanchardstown and Cabra Garda stations in Dublin, was suspended by An Garda Síochána and later resigned from the force before pleading guilty on the day of his scheduled trial last October.
He was a member of the Irish
Defence Forces between 2002 and 2009 and served as a garda between 2009 and 2023.
Reading her victim impact statement in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court this week, Meav McLoughlin-Doyle described a relationship marked by control, violence, coercion and abuse during which she and her children lived in ‘constant terror’.
‘He was a respected member of the community but a monster in our home,’ she said. ‘He used his position to shake off any suspicion.’
Sentencing Doyle yesterday, Judge Martin Nolan said he engaged in ‘reprehensible’ behaviour, which involved a ‘pattern of violence’.
‘For reasons known only to Mr Doyle, he couldn’t control his temper and blamed his wife for his own bad behaviour,’ the judge said, adding it was ‘noteworthy’ that Doyle was a former member of the Defence Forces and a member of An Garda Síochána. He noted the assaults took place in front of children at times.
‘It was an oppressive house to live in,’ the judge said. ‘Meav Doyle bears the scars...’ He sentenced Doyle to six years.
The court heard Doyle once showed up to a parent-teacher meeting in his Garda car and uniform, after the school had expressed concerns over a disclosure by a child.
‘Home is supposed to be a place of support and safety, but it was the opposite,’ Ms McLoughlinDoyle said in her impact statement. ‘Our home was a place of fear, humiliation, violence and walking on eggshells.’ She said she could never have imagined the constant fight to survive she and her children endured, saying: ‘The trauma will last a lifetime.’
She said the abuse had turned her from a confident, ambitious woman into a shell of herself, suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and depression. Her children suffer from mental health difficulties including anxiety, self-harm ideation, and anger issues. She concluded with a powerful description of domestic violence as a ‘targeted reign of terror’.
‘Domestic violence is the erosion of confidence and self-worth. Domestic violence is isolation from family, friends and the world. Domestic violence is financial abuse. Domestic violence is constant carnage wreaked to the family home. Domestic violence is constantly second-guessing yourself. Domestic violence is the fear of violence all the time and of violence against children.
‘Domestic violence is not knowing what will set the offender off, and when you think you have worked it out, it changes on a whim. Domestic violence is fear of shame. Domestic violence is fear of having nowhere to go, while being judged for staying. Domestic violence is shame of letting it get that far.’
Detective Inspector Adrian Kinsella from the Garda National Protection Bureau gave evidence of the assaults.
Mark Doyle met his ex-wife in 2007 and they married in 2012. She had two children from her previous relationship and had two more children with Doyle.
Doyle would slag his wife and pick on her over issues like money, weight gain, or how things were done in the house. He twice perforated his wife’s eardrum by punching her in the head in front of her children. Afterwards, he blamed her, saying: ‘You see what you’ve made me do.’
On one occasion, he grabbed her throat with both hands and tried to choke her, knocking her to the floor while she screamed.
When she was five or six months pregnant, Doyle threw a chair at her, cutting her on the thigh and saying it was ‘her fault’ as she made him do it.
Another time he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her around
‘Our home was a place of fear’ ‘The trauma will last a lifetime’
‘like a dog’ while his children shouted at him to stop. During other assaults, he kicked his wife repeatedly while wearing boots and whipped her in the head with his jacket.
Ms McLoughlin-Doyle required medical treatment numerous times. She once lied, telling doctors she had ‘fallen over the dog’.
Doyle assaulted one of his stepsons with an airsoft gun. This son recalled staying in his room a lot and ‘tuning out’ when the atmosphere changed in the house. His stepfather would call him names like ‘stupid’, ‘fat cunt’, and ‘retard’. Doyle also assaulted his other stepson, punching him in the stomach, banging his head on the table, pulling him out of bed by the hair and stamping on him, causing cuts to his face, the court heard. Ms McLoughlinDoyle filed a complaint to gardaí in the spring of 2020. Doyle met gardaí by appointment in December 2020 and denied the allegations, saying ‘everything had been twisted’.
He told gardaí: ‘I have been experiencing abuse for years and controlling behaviour’ and alleged one of his stepsons had drunkenly attacked him. The court heard Doyle indicated his intention to plead guilty three months before his actual plea.
The court heard Doyle grew up in an environment of violence and his father had alcohol addiction. Doyle had offered to apologise to his ex-wife but this was rejected.
Doyle – who is in a new relationship – has not seen his children since 2021, and he now accepts his guilt and the wrong he did to his ex-wife and children, the court was told.