A v B (Approved)

4.������ Remarkably, Mr B at one point in the proceedings sought to justify striking his wife during their marriage. The court set him straight on this point and, disturbingly, must reiterate, yet again, a point that it made as recently as X v. Y [2020] IEHC 525 , at para. 47, and which it has already had to reiterate since:

��������� �There is no context in an intimate relationship in which domestic violence is permissible....A party to an intimate relationship should never have to live in the� fear and/or with the actuality of domestic violence being perpetrated upon that party. There are no �ifs� or �buts� in this regard, no exceptions, no mitigating circumstances. Domestic violence and/or the threat of domestic violence (even where no actual violence ensues) is always unacceptable.�

5.������ If Mr B found something that his wife said was of a nature to set off his temper, then the appropriate course of action for him to take was to head out on a walk, take a cold shower, or take himself to his parents� house for the night, basically whatever it took to �cool down�. There is no excuse for domestic violence.

8.������ There was a period when texts were being sent by Mr B to his children, which they found disturbing. For example, a supposed �Happy New Year� message sent by Mr B to a daughter promised that he would be making all sorts of trouble in the year ahead. Fortunately, it appears from the evidence that the sending of such messages has now stopped. However, relations between Mr B and his children are fraught, Ms A averring, inter alia , as follows:

��������� �I say that our children suffer stress and anxiety�[owing] to the respondent�s behaviour. They have come home from access on numerous occasions in a distressed state where the respondent has told them [that] they are only �pawns in a game�, he is going to sell their home and he doesn�t care where they live��.