Three missing knives and a mother asks for protection

By Anna Zacharias, The Kerryman

At a recent barring order hearing, a woman described fear and confusion when she discovered three kitchen knives missing as she made her children’s lunches.

The next morning, she left with her children to a shelter.

The wife told the District Court judge how her husband’s behaviour escalated after she told him she intended to separate.

“He tells me I am mentally unwell,” she said. “He tells me I’m an idiot. He tells me I’m a psycho.”

She detailed two incidents of physical aggression to her children.

In the first, she said her son told her his father ‘whacked’ him on a second-degree burn at bedtime.

Days later, her daughter said he put her head against the wall as they got ready for school. The woman said when she questioned her husband, he responded, ‘this is what kids do, they lie’.

At the school, she said she informed staff there were ‘a few issues at home’.

At 1.10am that night, as her children slept and she made their school lunches, gardai arrived at the door for a welfare check.

Two nights later, she discovered three kitchen knives missing when she went to cut the crusts off sandwiches.

“They were nowhere to be found,” she said. “I became quite worried why there were no knives in the drawer and, having gone through what he’d told the gards about my mental health, I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

She said she placed books outside her children’s rooms and emailed her parents “just in case”.

She described searching rooms for the missing knives.

“If the knives were anywhere else, I would look like a complete and utter basketcase,” she told the judge. “He’d say it to the gards, he’d say it to all my family.”

At 7.30am, she said she found the knives returned to the kitchen drawer.

“I didn’t know what he was going to do,” she said. “I didn’t know whether he was going to kill me, kill the children or frame me. The next morning, I went to a refuge. I didn’t know what to do.”

She obtained an interim barring order.

“[He] has never hit me personally, but I would be petrified for my children,” she said.

She also told the court that her daughter had gone to school in 2024 with a black eye and that her husband had disclosed personal information to her older daughter and friends, against her wishes.

She said her husband repeatedly told friends and family that she had mental health issues. There was no evidence to support this, the court heard.

She said she had attended a treatment centre for alcohol addiction more than 15 years ago and had not had a drink in nine years.

Her husband’s barrister asked if he had minded the children when she attended classes.

“No, he didn’t,” she said. “That was the reason I had to give it up after five weeks. It was reported back to me, by the preschool, that my children needed me at home.”

She noted her husband enjoyed carrying their children to football matches “to be seen” and took their sons to a countryside property on weekends.

“He even bought a tractor last week to drive them around. Elaborate stuff. I’m trying to keep them somewhat normal.”

In his testimony, the complainant said he was putting his children to bed on an “unbelievably normal” night but his son “was uber sensitive” about his burn. He said it “became a big drama” when his wife came running into the room.

“Not a hope did I strike [the burn],” he said.

Regarding the second incident, he told the judge his daughter darted under his arm and tripped. “She overplayed her hand,” he said.

He added, “It was absolutely nothing.”

He told the judge a relative advised him to hide the kitchen knives and lock his when he expressed his fears about his wife’s mental health.

“The following night I saw a butcher’s knife upon the table,” he said.

He said this made him fearful because his wife was a “forensic cleaner”. He said he went “straight to the garda” when he discovered she had spoken with the school.

He said his daughter “is playing a game”.

“But as regards to the boys, I have an unbelievable relationship with them,” he told the judge.

The wife’s solicitor noted the story about the butcher’s knife was never said to her client and so her client did not have the opportunity to respond.

“Can you understand my client is afraid of you?” asked the solicitor. “She was trembling when she gave her evidence.”

“My wife has left with the children,” he said. “The whole [place] knows there’s something going on.”

He said he would have left the house “in a heartbeat” if asked. “I’m so disgusted that it’s come to this.”

The judge observed that through his testimony, he centred himself in the narrative.

He said a two-year barring order “was needed for the children” and granted it.