Man ordered to hand over interest in family home after conviction of assaulting wife

A Wexford man has been given an 18-month suspended sentence for assaulting his wife and ordered to hand over his interest in the family home to her.

John Sheridan (70) had pleaded not guilty to four counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and three counts of assault causing harm to Ann Sheridan (64) on dates between January 1st, 1994 and June 30th, 2002.

Sheridan of St. Aidan’s Villas, Enniscorthy, was convicted by a jury following a trial at The Central Criminal Court earlier this year.

The couple married in 1990 after Mrs Sheridan had answered an ad listed as a “quiet man” in Ireland’s Own magazine. The court heard he was 36 and she was 30, and the marriage was difficult from the outset. She would be berated if her cooking was not to his liking.

The verbal abuse started as soon as she got married, and the physical violence started a year after the birth of their son in 1993, where he would hit her with an open hand.

On one occasion, when she was pregnant, he threw a bedroom locker at her, which she narrowly avoided. The assaults would happen twice a week, and she would be left bruised and marked under her clothing, the court heard.

After the birth of their daughter in 1997, the physical abuse progressed from hits with an open hand to using a closed fist. After she had healed, he’d give her what he referred to as “a renewal’.

He would refer to her as “a leppy” as she was epileptic, and he said that this was the cause of her bruising. She said she was breastfeeding her younger child, and he’d “rabbit punch” her. The court heard this is a country term for a punch with a closed fist.

On another occasion, she was in a room with her two children when he came towards her, and when she tried to run away, he kicked her in the coccyx with his steel-capped boot.

When interviewed by gardaí, he admitted hitting his wife but denied kicking her. The court heard he had no previous convictions.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said, “I was married for 10 years, being abused from the first day.”

“To this day, the emotional pain never goes away…I’m only a shell of the woman I once knew,” she added.

“I never had freedom in my marriage…obedience was always demanded of me in all areas of my life – as they say, ‘Love, honour, obey’.”

Under cross-examination by Colman Cody SC, defending, Gda O’ Connell agreed that Sheridan was now in a new relationship and has no contact with his children.

She also agreed he was co-operative with gardaí and indicated that he had assaulted her on three or four occasions but said it was with an open hand and denied kicking her.

He said Sheridan has lost his family he had with his wife and “has already been punished”.

“Is it in the interest of justice to send this elderly man to prison?” Mr Cody asked the court.

Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford said the pattern of abuse would now be considered as coercive control but that he was guilty of assaults on his then-wife.

She noted he was a different man now and is in a new relationship for the past 20 years with his new partner, saying he is supportive.

The judge noted that there was no plea and no concrete admission of remorse. However, she said there was no useful purpose in sending him to prison. She ordered that Sheridan hand over his interest in the family home to her and said it was on that basis she was giving him a suspended sentence.

She set a headline sentence of three years for the assaults but reduced this to 18 months, suspending it in its entirety.