Man beat partner so badly he checked her breathing then threatened to eat her liver
Ian Doyle was on bail at the time for assaulting a different partner,
A man who beat his partner so badly he checked she was breathing afterwards and later threatened to cut her throat and eat her liver has been jailed for three years.
Ian Doyle (33), who was on bail at the time for assaulting a different partner, did not let the woman leave the house for nearly a week following a sustained attack on her in her home in February 2023. Her four-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs at the time of this first beating.
The woman needed medical attention but he refused to let her leave the house and instead supplied her with paper stitches and painkillers which he had bought at a nearby pharmacy.
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Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that after the first attack, the woman tried to leave the house with her young child but Doyle forced her back inside. The court was shown CCTV footage of this incident.
On another occasion when the little girl requested food, the woman attempted to go downstairs and prepare her a meal but Doyle pushed the woman down the stairs, causing a wound that she had from the earlier assault to re-open and bleed again. The child witnessed this second attack.
Garda Claire McLoughlin told Patricia McLaughlin SC, prosecuting, that while Doyle kept the woman in the house, he took control of her mobile phone. He allowed her to call her mother daily, as the woman was in a habit of doing this, but he monitored the call.
He also allowed the woman to contact her social worker but he sent this key worker text messages from the victim’s phone - purporting to be the victim.
Gda McLoughlin said the woman only managed to call for help when Doyle left the house to attend a court hearing and didn’t take the woman’s phone with him.
The first attack took place on a Saturday night and the woman only managed to call her friend for help the following Friday.
This friend took her to hospital but Doyle was there when they arrived. In the hospital, he kissed the woman and held her hand in front of medical staff, showing concern for her well-being.
Judge Orla Crowe was provided with a booklet of photographs of the house taken by the gardaí after the woman managed to report the attacks.
The photographs showed blood splatter all over the house from the front door handle, to the bathroom walls, to the staircase, a blood stained towel, bed sheets, pillows and clothing.
She was also given a booklet of the woman’s injuries which were ultimately taken a week after the first assault.
Doyle, of Cashel Avenue, Crumlin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting the woman causing her harm and threatening to kill or causing serious harm to the woman on dates in February 2023. Charges of assault causing harm and false imprisonment were taken into consideration.
A victim impact statement was handed into court but not read out. The woman no longer lives in Ireland.
Doyle has 74 previous convictions for offences including assault, public order, violence in a garda station and possession of articles with intent to cause harm. He is currently serving a three and a half year prison term for assaulting a different partner and is due for release in April 2026.
Gda McLoughlin said gardaí arrived at the woman’s home on February 18, 2023 following an anonymous call about a disturbance there.
They spoke to the victim, whom the garda described as intoxicated and spoke with Doyle. The woman was not injured and told gardaí she was fine. The officers also checked on the woman’s four-year-old daughter who was asleep upstairs.
The woman later told gardaí that after they left, Doyle became agitated and aggressive towards her. She described him as foaming at the mouth before he “booted” her straight into the chest and landed her across the room.
She said he was “booting” her all over and she was afraid for her life. She was afraid he would kill her before he dragged her up onto a chair.
Gda McLoughlin said Doyle then took a “swinging kick” into the right hand side of her head and the next she could recall was waking up on the ground.
Doyle told her he had to check her stomach to make sure she was breathing – “I thought I had killed you,” he said.
It was at this point that the woman tried to leave the house with her child but Doyle prevented her from doing so. He kept her then in the house for a number of days until she was ultimately able to call her friend.
Judge Crowe said the attacks occurred within the context of “an intimate relationship” but accepted that it was a new relationship, having only started the previous month.
She noted evidence that Doyle began asserting his control over the woman before the assault by trying to pair their phones and demanding that the woman change her phone for one he had bought her. Doyle ultimately smashed the woman’s phone when she refused to take this new phone as he had suggested.
She noted from the photographs before the court that there was blood splatter “throughout the house” and that the photographs of the woman’s injuries, taken a week later, show extensive bruising over her entire body and a “very deep cut to her head”.
Judge Crowe said Doyle provided the woman with medication after the assault, that made her feel dazed and he refused to let her go to the hospital. She noted that the threat he issued to “cut her throat and eat her liver” were in the days after the first assault when the woman began to feel better.
The judge said when the woman successfully managed to get help, Doyle followed her to the hospital and “purported to be a loving partner”.
“It is an inherently very serious offence,” Judge Crowe said, before she noted that the pleas Doyle entered “don’t capture the whole offending”.
“It went on for a protracted period of time and was carried out by a man who was on bail for assaulting another partner,” the judge continued.
She took into account that the victim impact statement outlined that the woman was “in terrible fear” and that she had suffered “both medical and psychological trauma”.
“This assault in her home was unwarranted and unjustified,” Judge Crowe said before she described Doyle’s actions as “cruel – in that he didn’t allow her out of his control.”
She said he subjected the woman to a very frightening series of events which was documented in the photographs from her home with “blood dotted around the house”.
Judge Crowe said the CCTV footage showed him bringing her and her child back into the house when they tried to escape.
“He showed utter disregard to another human being for her dignity and rights and the dignity and rights of her child. It is a very sad state of affairs,” Judge Crowe said.
She set a headline sentence of five years which she reduced to three years and six months having taken into account that Doyle had pleaded guilty, although she noted that it was a late plea and that the woman had to come to court for a pre-trial hearing.
Judge Crowe suspended the final six months of the term on condition that Doyle engage with the Probation Service for two years upon his release and engage with any courses they recommended particularly in relation to violence against intimate partners.
This sentence is to be consecutive to the current sentence he is serving for assaulting a different partner, which is due to expire in April 2026.
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