# Barring order / supervised access... what's involved?



## dubinamerica (4 Apr 2010)

If a person has been verbally threatened and assaulted by their spouse and does not feel safe in own home, what is required to obtain barring order? Would a statement to gardai regarding an incident be required? Statements by older children in house? Then bring these to the family law court? 

Can supervised access be requested? 

ANY assistance would be appreciated.


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## samanthajane (4 Apr 2010)

Hi again, only just see you posted this as well. 

There are a number of places you can contact for information. 

CIC again, and within the CIC there is FLAK, it is free legal advice, they can go through the process of what you have to do. I tried to look for a number for you but i couldn't find one. The dublin number is 01-4735178, maybe if you give them a ring they can give you some info or even a number for closer to where you are. 

There is also a place called Treois, again in dublin but at least you can get some info. They wern't able to help in my situation but gave me some brilliant advice. There number is 01-6700120. 

Make sure what ever you do you get a solicitor, i made the mistake of thinking i didn't need one, and well i lost and now I'm having to appeal. It can sometimes take a while but if it is an emergency then you can get help pretty quick. I contact them on thursday and i'm going into them on tuesday and i will be walking out with a list of legal aid solicitors to contact and all the paperwork i need. You and yours children's safety are the very important so you should be helped straight away. 

I haven't done much research in this section myself, but i know someone that did. She didn't need statements from anyone, she went in said what she had to say and the barring order was made. Also helped that the other side didn't even bother to turn up to court.

I found out that just bringing a statement that was made is not good enough, even with a case number, find out who the guard was that you dealt with and contact them and ask them to appear in court for you. Same with your children as well. In my case i was in court on the tuesday and the judge asked to see the children. He saw them at 12.45pm on the wednesday when the morning criminal cases had been finished. The place was empty apart from a few guards and the judges clerk. And the afternoon session wasn't taking place untill 2pm so there was no chance of them seeing any of the other side. 

I'm not sure of the time scale from when you make an order concerning your situation. What you can do yourself to speed things up is go to the district court house and make an application yourself, you wont need to bring any paper work with you that day. At least then you will have a date and you can then contact a solicitor. 

Every situation is different, even if i knew every single detail of your situation there is no way of knowing if supervised access will be ordered or even the barring order. I've learnt myself that anything can happen, and the other party could say anything, you just dont know. But if you have reports made to the police and your children have been witness, only in my opinion but i think you could very well get the barring order. The supervised access could be a bit more difficult. I have a very close friend that was battered black and blue for years. She got the barring order no problem but was refused the supervised access, the children wanted to see their father he had never hurt them, so they must of felt safe around him and he was very careful not to do anything in front of them, so the judge obviously thought he was no danger to them and he was allowed access to them with no supervision. Bleeding stupid i think, but like i said you have no way of knowing what will happened. 

Hope things work out for you xx

EDIT: oh yeah i just thought of something else as well just incase you didn't know. Family court is held in the district court, where i was it was criminal in the morning and family in the afternoon. You will all enter the court room and your names will be called so they who is and isn't there. But when they call the first case, every one that is not involved in the case has to leave the room. So it will only be you, the judge, the clerk, your solicitor, and the other side and their solicitor if they have one, and a guard will be in the court as well. No one else is allowed in, even if you bring someone to support you they will have to wait outside with everyone else. So it's not like you have to get up and tell your business in front of a load of strangers or someone thats having a nosey by turning up just to see who has been doing what.


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## ziltwo (9 Apr 2010)

dubinamerica said:


> If a person has been verbally threatened and assaulted by their spouse and does not feel safe in own home, what is required to obtain barring order? Would a statement to gardai regarding an incident be required? Statements by older children in house? Then bring these to the family law court?
> 
> Can supervised access be requested?
> 
> ANY assistance would be appreciated.



First of all can I please say that the place you are in is a very lonely and frightening place to be, but you have too no that you are not powerless.  There is plenty of help out there; my situation was very similar too yours and for every little step I made I got stronger.  When this was happening too me, I was afraid too go to a solicitor and of course I always worried about consequences and I feared so much that the kids would suffer.  I started slowly so that I wouldn’t overwhelm myself; as I am sure you know yourself what fear does to you (it stops you in your tracts like glue).  I went to my local gardai station and explained what was happening;  the very nice Garda took me into his office and explained to me what I need to do; he also took my mobile/home number and address and told me in the meantime if I needed them to assist me; too call them without hesitation.  Very simply, you can go to your local family law courthouse; make an application by filling in a form; basically what you are looking for is a safety and protection order. The court clerk will call you in and you make a statement and he writes down what you are saying; be prepared and if you can have dates times etc at hand.  After a while, you are then called into the courtroom; this you will have to do on your own; but the only people in the courtroom is the judge the clerk and yourself; the judge will ask you questions and will grant you a temporary safety and protection order; this order will be sent to the person you fear and also will be sent to your local gardai station and on this form a date will be fixed to hear the case, giving you both to defend yourselves.  My advice too you at that stage, is too get yourself a solicitor to defend you; in my case I didn’t and found it a bit daunting even though the other person never turned up to defend himself but I followed through and obtain a full safety and protection order for 12 months.  That piece of paper gave me so much comfort.  Information 
Under the Domestic Violence Act, 1996, Gardai (the Irish police force) have the power to arrest and prosecute a violent family member. Under the law there are two main kinds of protection available, a safety order and a barring order. 
A safety order is an order of the court which prohibits the violent person from further violence or threats of violence. It does not oblige the person to leave the family home. If the person lives apart from you it prohibits them from watching or being near your home. 
A barring order is an order which requires the person to leave the family home. 
To get a barring order or a safety order you must attend a District Court hearing. While you are waiting for the court to hear your application, the court can give you an immediate order called a protection order. The protection order has the same effect as a safety order. In exceptional circumstances the court can grant an interim barring order. This is an immediate order, requiring the violent person to leave the family home. 
A safety order can last up to 5 years and a barring order up to 3 years. These orders can be renewed by applying for a further order before the previous one has expired.
All this information you will find in the citizens information under barring, protection and safety orders. 

best of luck to you
Zil


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## dubinamerica (12 Apr 2010)

thanks so much for the feedback - for the protection order - if the spouse is already living out of the family home, does this mean that they cannot be near the home from then on? Say they moved out already could they move back in ? 
For a barring order, does this go further than stopping person come into the home - does it stop all contact? If a person wants to maintain contact regarding access, would this breach a barring order?
Regards children covered by protection order, if a father attempted to interfere with arrangements such as collecting child from school, playschool, without mothers knowledge could protection order come into play then? To give some power to the playschool to stop father removing child? Thanks again for all the info on this - any examples of whats covered not/covered in practice would really really help


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## Papercut (12 Apr 2010)

Hi dublinamerica,
  It’s great to see that you are dealing with the situation, & hopefully things will only get better for you & your children from this on.

  As others have stated there is help available to you. I would suggest contacting Women’s Aid on Freephone 1800 341 900 www.womensaid.ie. They provide an excellent service & can walk you through exactly what you should do in your particular situation.

  The difference between a [broken link removed], a [broken link removed], & a [broken link removed] are explained more clearly than I’ve seen anywhere else on the Tearmann Domestic Violence website, which is based in Monaghan, but at least might make things a bit clearer for you. You may just want to have a look through it.  

  Some locally based organisations provide a court accompaniment & counselling services. A list of local services is available here:  if you scroll down the page.

  Free Legal Advice  http://www.flac.ie/gethelp/ is available phone 1890 350 250 or 01-8745690, or you can find your nearest legal Advice Centre here: [broken link removed]

  Depending on your financial circumstances, you may be entitled to Free Legal Aid http://www.legalaidboard.ie/  phone 01-644 1900.

If you contact Women’s Aid they will walk you through all this & advise you on the best way to proceed.

Best of luck & stay strong.


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