Estranged spouse says he’s a stalker

A PENSIONER has admitted following his estranged wife to a dance after being told she was going home in another man’s van.

The pair, married for more than 40 years, share the same house despite separating seven years ago.

The case was outlined at the family law court in Ennis, Co Clare, where the man’s solicitor Colum Doherty told the woman: “Your husband has concerns that you travel in the back of a van with another man.”

She denied this and said she was getting a lift to save money on a taxi.

The woman accused her husband, who is in his 70s, of “stalking” her.

Aged in her 60s, she made her claim during an unsuccessful application for a safety order against him.

In evidence, the woman said her husband would turn off the ESB connection to prevent her listening to the radio and turned off the TV when she was watching. He denied this.

Explaining why he followed her, he said: “I got a phone call one night and it was from a woman and it was a faint voice and she said, ‘You would want to go down and see what your wife is doing, she is going home in vans’.

“I went to the hotel and I was there a half an hour before it was over. She came out and went into the back of a van that had no safety belt, no nothing and she was put into it like a sack of spuds. I went to the driver and I said ‘Do you know that is my wife in the back of the van?’ He said, ‘I don’t know whose wife she is’.”

“I have tried mediation to save the marriage but she is like Maggie Thatcher, it is ‘No, no, no’.”

The woman brought the Safety Order application after an alleged altercation on a street.

The woman said she was going to visit a relative in Ennis and her husband approached her and told her she was “an effing whore and all sorts of rude words”.

She told the court: feel awful was afraid.”

Mr Doherty said his client doesn’t like seeing his wife going off on the bus. In reply, she said: “I have a free pass and I am not making enough use of it.”

In evidence, the man denied verbal abuse. He said: “I have never raised my voice to her.”

The woman’s solicitor said her client would not consider mediation as what happened on the street is part of chronic behaviour by him.

Ms Clancy said: “Gardai have been called and without a safety order they say there is not much they can do.”

In giving his ruling, Judge Durcan said he would encourage the pair to formalise their separation.

He added: “This is a very sad case and I have sympathy for both parties.

“You should bring matters to a head but not in the context of the Domestic Violence Act.”

ENNIS FAMILY COURT CO CLARE, YESTERDAY

“It made me ashamed. I

She had no safety belt and was put into van like a sack of spuds

MAN