Ex-garda awaiting sentence for years of family assaults
Former wife tells court of abuse ‘horror’
It was a constant fight to survive for me and the children
and
A FORMER garda and soldier has been remanded in custody overnight pending sentence today for assaulting his ex-wife and stepsons over a 12-year period.
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 causing them harm.
The offences occurred on dates between September
2007 and August 2019.
Doyle, who had been stationed at Ronanstown, Blanchardstown and
Cabra, was suspended by
An Garda Siochana and later resigned from the force.
He was a member of the
Irish Defence Forces between
2002 and 2009 and a garda between 2009 and 2023.
Reading her victim impact statement in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Meav Mcloughlin-doyle said her ex-husband took herself and her children through “horror after horror” during the 12 years they were together.
She described a relationship marked by control, violence, coercion and abuse during which she and her children lived in “constant terror and fear”.
She added: “He was a respected member of the community but a monster in our home. He used his position to shake off any suspicion.”
Ms Mcloughlin-doyle said she could never have imagined the “tsunami of issues” and constant fight to survive that she and her children have endured as fallout of the abuse.
“The trauma will last a lifetime,” she said, adding that the abuse had turned
her from a confident, outgoing, ambitious woman into a shell of herself, suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and depression.
Her children suffer from numerous mental health difficulties including anxiety, self-harm ideation, and anger issues, the court heard.
She concluded her victim impact statement with a powerful description of domestic violence as a “targeted reign of terror”.
Detective Inspector Adrian Kinsella from the Garda National Protection Bureau gave evidence of the assaults to Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting.
The court heard Doyle twice perforated his wife’s eardrum by punching her to the head in front of her children, blaming her for the assault: “You see what you’ve made me do.”
Doyle assaulted one of his stepsons with an airsoft gun, shooting him in the backside and laughing before removing the pellet with tweezers.
Inspector Kinsella agreed with Garnet Orange SC, defending, that Doyle grew up in an environment of ongoing violence in the family and that his father had alcohol addiction.
Mr Orange said Doyle had offered to apologise to his ex-wife but this was rejected.
A psychological report submitted to the court said Doyle has expressed notable remorse, shame, embarrassment and regret and that he understands the traumatic effect of his behaviour.
Judge Martin Nolan remanded Doyle in custody overnight to consider his sentence.