Suspended prison sentence for man who harassed wife

Suspended prison sentence for man who harassed wife

12 February 2014

A BALLYKINLAR man who angrily kicked at the door of his ex-wife’s house has received a three month suspended prison sentence for breaching a court order.

Aaron Tilley (31) had been ordered to stay away from his wife Lyndsay during the break-up of their marriage but made several phone calls to her as well as kicking and banging the doors of the family home at Demesne Court, Downpatrick, on one occasion.

He was subsequently charged with four counts of breaching a non-molestation order and one of making a threat to kill. Tilley was cleared of the threat to kill charge at Downpatrick Court on Monday, as well being cleared on one of the charges of breaching a non-molestation order.

At Downpatrick Court Ms. Tilley said her ex-husband first tried to contact her on November 10, 2012 by calling her son and later ringing her from from a withheld number.

A few days later on November 17 she said she received another call from a withheld number. Then on the evening of November 24 she said she was in the house with a friend when Tilley arrived, using abusive language and threatening to kill her.

“He started kicking and punching at the door,” she said. “He then went to the back of the house trying to get the patio doors open.”

Three months later Ms. Tilley said she was at hospital with her sick daughter when she received another phone call from her ex-husband, this time using his mother’s phone.

Cross-examining, defence barrister Alan Blackburn suggested Ms. Tilley had a “vendetta” against her former husband. Referring to the incident of November 24, Mr. Blackburn said: “He said he was not there that day; that this did not happen. He was with his brother-in-law watching TV. You have invented this incident.”

District Judge Greg McCourt said he was satisfied that Tilley, of Marian Park, was at his ex-wife’s house on the evening of November 24 in breach of the court order.

“It is all a bit unbelievable on Mr. Tilley’s part,” he said.

However, he dismissed a charge of making a threat to kill on this occasion, referring to it instead as “abusive swearing”.

The charge of breaching a non-molestation order on November 17 was also dismissed. Noting Tilley had previously breached a court order, Mr. McCourt said: “It concerns me there could be further offending and I want to put a stop to that.”

In a separate contested hearing also heard on Monday, Tilley was cleared on a charge of common assault relating to an incident involving his ex-wife on October 31, 2012.

Giving evidence, Ms. Tilley said that as she began to record taunts from her husband on a mobile phone, he tried to get the phone off her while shouting and swearing.

Ms. Tilley’s mother, Elizabeth Rhodes, who was in the house earlier that day, told the court she recalled Tilley saying: “Get her out of it, get her out of here, it is going to turn nasty like the last time.”

Mr. Blackburn argued Ms. Tilley “saw a chance to create a situation or embellish substantially a situation” as a recent application for a non-molestation order had been unsuccessful.

Mr. McCourt ruled that on this occasion there was a “serious, volatile argument” but that it didn’t amount to common assault.