Case Studies
Elizabeth's Story*
This case study relates to the press release on November 24th, Children are the silent, unseen and unheard victims of Domestic Violence.
I feel so tired, I don't know where this will all end. I can't believe that even after all I've been through to stop him abusing me and the children, that I still have to meet him every week, listen to him shouting at the children and telling me that he might not bring them back this time. I worry the whole time that they are with him during access visits, counting down the minutes until it's time for him to bring them back. The thoughts that I have scare me so much, the thought that he might not bring them back, that he might have hurt them, the thought of them being upset and looking for me. How can it be that no one else can see that none of this is about the children, that he doesn't really care about the children-- that it's all about how miserable he can make my life.
I was married to Peter for nine years. We had three children, Ann, Alex and Jane. The abuse started with shouting, putting me down, not allowing me to go to visit family and friends. Then when I stopped work to look after the children he would not give me any money. He did the shopping, he paid the bills and he blamed me if the bills were too high or if the food didn't last the week. He would slap the children. He said that children needed to be slapped or they would never learn discipline, but it didn't seem to be about discipline, it was about humiliating them. I will never forget the first time he took Ann into the hall, held her arm so tight and starting slapping her on the bottom. I told him to stop and I got the look, the one that told me, 'don't you start'. I tried to talk to him, to tell him that I didn't want to slap our children and that we could look at other ways to discipline them, but it didn't get any better.
One night after he had slapped Ann and Alex and sent them to bed, I went upstairs to go into them, but he came up after me. He grabbed me, pulling my arm behind my back and dragged me from the room across the landing and into our bedroom, shouting all the time. Ann came out onto the landing and he shouted at her to go back to bed or she would get the same. I will never forget her face. She looked so small and scared and I couldn't go to her, I couldn't tell her it would be ok because I didn't know what was happening myself, or where this would end. What I did know was that every time his fist hit my body, I knew I needed to be quiet for the kids.
Later that night I tried to go into the children's room to check that they were ok but he would stop me, he told me that I was spoiling them. It wasn't until Jane started crying early in the morning that he let me go to them.
After this the physical assaults became more frequent. After he hit me he would take the keys for the car with him to work, or call the house repeatedly to check that I was there. I think he was afraid that I would tell someone or go somewhere. I could take the shouting, the cursing at me, but the hitting and kicking-- knowing that the children could see how sore I was the next day, see the bruises, seeing the confusion on their faces--it was too much. I thought about leaving him, taking the children and going away, but his threat always rang loud in my head, that he would find us and it wouldn't be just me who would suffer.
After a year of the physical abuse we were at a community play where I saw a poster about domestic abuse. I couldn't believe it as I looked at the bruised face of the woman on that poster it was like looking into my own eyes. It said you are not alone, there is help available. I remember scrabbling for a pen in my bag, memorising the number and for the first time in a long time feeling hopeful. Could someone possibly help me, could someone understand what was happening to me, to my children? Could I tell them what was happening, or would they take my children away from me?
A few weeks later Peter got really angry one night. I knew what would happen as he told me to go to the bedroom, I knew what would happen if I said no. Either way he would take what he wanted, either way I would end up lying on the floor crying, bruised and beaten. So I decided to say No--something inside of me was switching, there was a strength that I hadn't felt before, a determination.
Peter got so mad when I said no, he started shouting and screaming, hitting out hard. I ran for the front door. All I could think was to get him out of the house away from the children and away from me. The shouting and hitting continued outside and someone must have called the Gardai, because as Peter dragged me back into the house, as I saw Ann and Alex at the top of the stairs, I could hear people shouting at him. I felt his grip loosen and I fell to the ground in the hall, he turned and the last thing I remember hearing him say was 'I'll kill you'. The Gaurds took me and the children to a refuge that night, they told me to go to court and get a barring order, that he was a mad man.
That night in the refuge was the first night I slept, that every time I startled awake I didn't see him beside me, that I could move without fear of waking him. I could see my children sleeping, I just cried and cried. Over the next few months I went to court to get a barring order, but I didn't feel safe enough to go home. We found a new place for me and the children to live and as we settled in there things seemed to get better. I was waiting to go to court to organise access visits for the children with Peter. I felt so worried about them being on their own with him, but he is their father so I wanted them to be able to see him.
At first I would meet him in the shopping centre and leave the children with him for a few hours. One day he called me to say I would find the children on the road by the side of the centre and that he was gone home. I couldn't believe he had left them on their own. Another time he took them off in his car with no child seats. In the court I told the judge about my fears and concerns, that I didn't want the children to be with him on their own. I couldn't believe it when the Judge granted him access every Wednesday after school and every other weekend.
Ann tells me she doesn't want to see her Dad, she worries about what he tells her about me, worries that if she tells me I'll be upset. Now that he has the access he doesn't even use it. Some Wednesdays he doesn't arrive at the school and pick them up and I get called to collect them. At the weekends I never know what time he will arrive to pick them up and what time he will drop them back at. Sometimes he drops them back within a few hours saying that they are brats and he doesn't want them.
One weekend he didn't let them call me all weekend and at eight on Sunday there was still no sign of him. I tried calling him and there was no answer from his mobile or from the house, my heart was pounding when at nine I called the Gardai. They couldn't find him at the house and eventually at eleven he arrived back with them. The children were all crying. Ann said he had been shouting and driving around all evening saying, 'I bet your mother's sorry now'. Now I have to go back to court to try and get the access changed, it seems it will never end.
*About Elizabeth: Elizabeth's story is based on real accounts as told to the Women's Aid National Freephone Helpline and Support Services. Specific details andcircumstances have been changed in the interests of protecting identity and to preserve the confidential nature of Women's Aid Services.