In this edited extract from Nicola Hanney’s remarkable memoir, in which she recounts the traumatising years she spent suffering abuse and coercive control at the hands of Garda Paul Moody while battling recurring cancer, she recalls the awful shock she received when she and her new baby arrived home from hospital
My mother drove me home, with Sonia too, and I remember not being able to take my eyes off Jack all the way home.
I was looking forward to being at home with him where everything was ready. I had a Moses basket and a little cot, with beautiful white bedclothes and a changer. I had stocked up on nappies and baby milk, and all the things I would need.
As I arrived home, I saw Laura’s car, and then Liam’s and Ross’s, parked outside, and as soon as I went in, I saw that Paul had stripped my apartment bare. Nothing was left for the baby, or for me. Even the toilet brush was gone. On the table there was a summons to the family court.
I was floored. Jack was asleep in his little car seat on the floor, without a nappy to change him into or a bottle to feed him with. My family started to stream in.
‘You mind the baby,’ Sarah said, ‘I’ll mind you.’
‘Nic!’ Liam’s wife, Sandra, called from the door, as she dropped in bags. ‘There’s nappies, bottles and clothes in there. I’ll be back later, okay?’
Ross and his wife came in with a changing table in a box and put it together.
‘Eat this,’ my mother said, lifting the baby from my arms, and handing me a bowl. I thanked God, again, for every one of them.
The summons that had come was for a court date in Dolphin House, the family court in Dublin. I organised someone to mind Jack and made my way in there. I would speak to the judge, I would ask the courts for help to keep Paul at bay. My friend Abbie came over the day before and we got a file together. There was print-out upon print-out of abusive texts with timestamps and transcripts of voice notes he had left.
A legal aid barrister came to meet me ten minutes before we went inside. She was pessimistic.
‘I need help,’ I said, ‘the judge needs to tell him to stop harassing me. I need a barring order.’
She corrected my terminology, told me that what I was looking for was called a ‘safety order’.
‘Yes, I want to apply for that,’ I said.
She looked suspicious. ‘You will need grounds, Nicola,’ she said.
‘He smashed my window!’ I said, opening the file and pointing to the photos I had brought for her.
She looked down. ‘Isn’t Mr Moody a garda?’ she said, and she flipped her own file around the right way to open it and read through it, sucking air through her teeth.
‘Yes, he is,’ I said.
‘Look, Nicola,’ she told me, ‘I’ll put in for this if it’s what you want me to do, but I feel that I have to be honest with you. Mr Moody is a garda and you are very ill; if we go into court he is going to look for custody and to be frank, he will likely get what he wants.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ I said, pushing my own file into her arms.
‘The judge won’t look at this Nicola,’ this barrister told me and she walked away to speak to Paul’s barrister, who had started walking up the hall to us, leaving his client at the other end. I felt devastated. This was not what I had expected at all. When my barrister walked back to me, Paul’s walked back to him and spoke into his ear. Paul did a little dance.
‘Mr Moody wants 50% custody,’ my barrister said, ‘you need to settle with him or risk losing your son today, Nicola.’
The words floored me and I started to panic. How could this be happening? My son was a newborn, he needed me. I knew what Paul was doing. He knew I would never leave Jack. If he fought for custody he got me back as part of the deal.
I couldn’t let him do this.
‘I want to speak to the judge,’ I said to the barrister, holding up my file desperately, ‘I want to show him this.’
‘Have it your way,’ the barrister said.
I wanted to scream. Of all the ways, this was not my way.
This was not how I saw my life. This was not what I had imagined court was, there was no fairness here. This court was unfamiliar and unfriendly and terrifying. It was so clear Paul had an advantage.
‘Let me speak to them,’ my barrister said and headed off again towards Paul’s lawyer.
As they spoke, I could see Paul getting bored.
My barrister came back. ‘I don’t know who you were praying to Nicola,’ she said with a tight smile, ‘but he said he will settle now for four hours a week. I would advise you to take it.’
I nodded at her, but inside I was burning. A whole day wasted away from my son. My precious days with my baby were already being robbed from me by my hospital appointments, my treatment and my illness. Now I was being played with by this man. Four hours a week? It was a joke to him. He didn’t want custody at all. My barrister came back with the papers and I signed them. I just wanted to go home.
When the court order came in the post it had so many inclusions, such as the right to an open line of communication (i.e. I had to unblock his phone and was forced to receive his texts and calls) and the right to information about the child’s care, where the child was and with whom (i.e. where I was and with whom). I read it out to Abbie on the phone.
‘I’ll have to go in and get that changed,’ I said. ‘I can’t live like that.’
But when I tried, the judge didn’t want to know, telling me over and over I had agreed. But I hadn’t agreed.
‘Judge, Paul Moody is terrorising me and my family,’ I said. ‘I can’t live with this order, it’s crazy, please.’
The judge shook his head. The court order would stay. I heard Paul laughing as I left the courtroom, inflated from his win.
“Telling judges I’m terrorising you and your family, I’m terrorising nobody I’m abusing no one, Plenty of evidence Ur a joke and so are ur pathetic family. I’ll sort this once and for all”
I read text after text and I couldn’t breathe. The small bit of energy I had belonged to Jack, not this man, not the court, not this drama series starring Paul Moody that was invading me like another disease.
I needed someone to help me. I got into my car and drove to Coolock, to the gardaí.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘you have to help me.’
I showed them my phone, and I watched the garda’s face change as he scrolled down through the messages. Texts bounced in as we sat there.
“See u soon in court
Enjoy ur weekend and ur summons on Tuesday
Nothing to say but that
Ur pathetic”
The gardaí from Coolock went the next day and arrested Paul.
Nicola Hanney’s book Stronger: What Didn’t Kill Me, Made Me is on sale now. For free and confidential domestic abuse support and information, contact Women’s Aid’s 24 hour National Freephone Helpline 1800 341 900, seven days a week.
