“It is to not have control of your money, it’s not normal to be put down, it’s not normal to have things thrown at you, to be slapped. You are treated like, nearly like a dog.”
A new documentary is set to explore the major increase in emergency calls from domestic abuse survivors in the past 12 months.
RTÉ Investigates filmed in several refuges across the country, as calls to domestic violence support services increased by 40% in 2021 from the previous year.
Refuges saw major shortages in the the past 12 months, meaning that some domestic violence victims were forced to live with their abusers.
“We have had women ringing in the middle of the night, whispering at the end of the phone,” Catherine Casey from a refuge in Kerry said.
“We are getting four times the amount of calls than we were getting pre-Covid.”
One in four women in Ireland who have been in a relationship have been abused by a current or former partner.
RTÉ Investigates spoke to a male victim who took his case to court.
International figures indicate one in nine men have experienced abuse from their partner.
“It is something that just crept up on me and I didn’t realise I was in that situation until the day I called a halt to it,” said Peter (a pseudonym).
“I realised things were not normal. My goodness today I can look back and say no, things were not normal.
“It is to not have control of your money, it’s not normal to be put down, it’s not normal to have things thrown at you, to be slapped. You are treated like, nearly like a dog.
“I did not see it until the end. You cannot help a person like that. You have to run, I should have run years ago. The warning signs were there.
“Who do you turn to? Who is going to believe you? And if you even tell someone, are they going to believe you.”
The program also spoke to Sarah Behan, a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her then partner Patrick Fitzpatrick, who had played the character of “Zumo” in Fair City for nine years.
Behan describes the attack, which lasted for around two hours.
“I got beaten badly. He pulled me back from the window, by the hair, and dragged me, and tried to strangle me for what felt like an eternity and I could see the room closing in. That was [a] window I was contemplating jumping out, possibly broken my two legs and pelvis.
“I wasn’t sure how I would do it, I was just thinking survival mode, flight or fight.
“A choice, will I just jump … then I was pulled back.”
A medical report following the assault described Behan as having “clumps of hair missing, and bruises on her face, and jaws.”
Behan described how the relationship had positive beginnings, until it changed “like a switch”.
“He’d broken me down so much; I had no fight left,” she said.
Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to the assault, but was remanded 14 times before the courts with a further two appeal hearings, delaying the verdict by 28 months, or over two years.
A year before his attack on Behan, Fitzpatrick assaulted a previous partner at his home in Ballymun in 2015, punching her twice in the jaw.
He was served a 12-probation period in May 2018 for that assault, and the remainder of the sentence for the assault on Sarah was suspended in January 2019.
It meant he served two days in prison for that assault.
“RTÉ Investigates – Domestic Abuse, A Year Of Crisis” airs this Monday (7 February) at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTE Player.
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