Dad who threatened to slit baby’s throat jailed
A MAN who threatened to kill his partner, their six-month-old baby and himself if she left him has been jailed for five years.
Patrick Stokes (26) told Louise Kavanagh he was going to slit her and the baby’s throat after threatening to rape her.
“You are going to die tonight,” he told her while he held her throat with both his hands.
Stokes, previously of Booterstown Halting Site, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to arson of their home at the site on February 2, 2017. The fire caused €21,000 worth of damage.
He further pleaded guilty to assaulting Ms Kavanagh causing her harm, threatening to kill or cause her serious harm and falsely imprisoning her at the Clayton Hotel, Sandyford, on March 11, 2017.
He has convictions for assault, hijacking, violent behaviour in a Garda station, possession of knives and robbery. Detective Garda Colm Gregan told Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that Stokes and Ms Kavanagh were staying in the Clayton Hotel after he had rendered them homeless having set fire to their house the previous month. She had just told him she was leaving him.
The couple re-united some weeks after the fire and had been getting on well when Stokes became aggressive again and attacked and threatened Ms Kavanagh in their hotel room.
He got on top of her and held her throat with both his hands until she struggled to breathe.
The detective said Ms Kavanagh managed to get away and made her way to the door but saw Stokes had grabbed their baby by the chest of his baby-grow while holding a knife in his other hand. She feared that he would hurt the child so she returned to calm him down before he dropped the baby from a height on to the bed.
He then continued his attack on Ms Kavanagh, punching her in the ribs and knocking her back on the bed before he again threatened to slit her and the baby’s throat.
Judge Martin Nolan said Stokes had a “difficult, violent background” and accepted that he became addicted to alcohol and drugs “to deal with matters”.