Judge Mary Larkin convicted the woman, who “can no longer walk around with a golf club .”
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, goes the famous English saying. This was the case for a 62-year-old mother of six who unapologetically smashed the windows of her estranged husband’s tractor with a golf club. The damage was the result of a reportedly unpaid $200,000 marital debt, according to court details.
At Gort District Court, the South Galway woman admitted that she had smashed windows off her husband’s tractor with a golf club in August 2020. Her reason was that at the time her husband failed to pay $200,000 as a result of a 2019 family court divorce deal.
A daughter of the estranged couple filmed her mother’s attack on the tractor on her phone and the footage was played back in court.
Judge Mary Larkin convicted the woman of criminal damage to the tractor and possession of an item during a dispute, telling her: “You took the law into your own hands with the golf club. You can’t walk around with a golf club to anyone.”
The woman’s lawyer, Charles Foley, told the court there was “an enormous residue of bittiness” over the then-unpaid $200,000.
The couple reached an agreement with the family law court in February 2019 that the man would pay $200,000 in July 2019 and the woman would relinquish her interest in the family home.
Foley said the $200,000 was not paid by the husband until April 2021 – however, this was only after his estranged wife was forcibly moved back into the family home and the farmer left the house to live in Gort.
The woman told Judge Larkin: “I had nowhere to live. He has three houses.”
Judge Larkin noted, “I kind of admire her for moving back into the house. Many are the ones who have had to wait for their money in family law cases and in the meantime they have to do it.”
The judge said: “She is a woman who has her mind. She moved back into the house and put the maximum pressure on her estranged husband to pay the money, according to asolandiscash.
