*Photograph: John Mangan
A JUDGE has discharged a jury in the first coercive control trial to come before the courts in Clare.
On the fourth day of the case at Ennis Circuit Court on Friday morning, Judge Francis Comerford told the jury he was discharging them arising from a medical report that was before the court.
No evidence was heard in the case this week and the trial was adjourned Wednesday and Thursday for ‘legitimate medical reasons’.
At the start of the case on Tuesday, counsel for the State, Shane Costelloe SC told the jury that audio recordings made by a mother and her daughter will make for “difficult listening” in the trial.
In his opening remarks in the trial of a 49 year old Co Clare man, Mr Costelloe stated that it was a peculiar and “an unusual feature in such a case” where the complainant began to record on her mobile phone interactions between herself and her husband at a time when their marriage had irrevocably broken down.
Mr Costelloe said that the couple’s daughter also felt that it was a good idea to start recording on her mobile phone what was going on between her parents and the jury will also hear that audio evidence.
Mr Costelloe said that the jury will also hear children’s voices on the audio recordings and he said it is the State’s view that the audio evidence supports the allegations against the accused.
Mr Costelloe told the jury that the audio recording evidence “is difficult listening, but you have to do it”.
Mr Costelloe told the jury that the couple are now divorced.
Before the jury, the man on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to a total of 22 separate charges that include coercive control, sexual assault and false imprisonment of his ex-wife.
In relation to the coercive control charge, Mr Costelloe said that it will be the State’s case that there was a pattern of behaviour by the accused where he was exerting through verbal threats and physical conduct a persistent pattern of coercive control on his then wife and that it had a serious effect on her.
Mr Costelloe said, “It was a marriage that was disintegrating and was characterised in its latter stages by initially verbal and then physical abuse. There were specific instances where the complainant was trying to resist, the accused sexually assaulted and the complainant was also unable to leave”.
In the case, the man is pleading not guilty to knowingly and persistently engaging in behaviour that was controlling or coercive and which had a serious effect on the woman who was or is his spouse between January 1st 2019 to May 15th 2019.
In total, the man is contesting 12 counts of sexual assault, six counts of false imprisonment, two counts of assault causing harm against the woman, one count of criminal damage and the coercive control charge.
In the case against the accused, the first alleged sexual assault against the woman is alleged to have occurred on October 15th 2018 with the final sex assault charge in February 2020. The alleged sexual assaults took place at two separate addresses.
