Coercive control survivor Nicola Hanney: ‘If I have to leave the country to keep my child safe, I will’

Nicola Hanney, the Dublin woman who was subjected to a four-year campaign of abuse by former garda Paul Moody, has many reasons to look forward to 2024.

She is not only a survivor of domestic abuse and coercive control, but also a cancer survivor. This week, a scan showed she remains fit and healthy. She has gained sole custody of her young son, after the family court took away all guardianship rights from Moody, who was sentenced to three years and three months in July 2022.

Since the RTÉ documentary Taking Back Control was broadcast last Monday about her fight for justice, she has become a beacon of hope for women countrywide who find themselves in similar situations.

“The phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” she says.

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There is one cloud on the horizon. When remission is taken into account, Moody will likely be released from prison in December 2024.

“If I have to leave the country to keep my child safe, I will,” says Hanney.

She explains that although he has been stripped of guardianship rights, it will be open to Moody to apply for supervised visits with his son. After a period, he will be able to reapply for the restoration of parental rights, although whether a judge grants them or not is another matter.

“He will be determined,” says Hanney “He will do the supervised access until he gets unsupervised access. Then I’m back in the same position. The law in Ireland does not protect me. Because you had intercourse with someone and had a child with them, does that give them the right to destroy the rest of your life?”

Last July, in one of the first convictions for coercive control in the State, Moody (44) was jailed for a campaign of harassment, threats and assaults of Hanney while she was battling aggressive cancer.

“I was not just fighting cancer. I was up against a monster who would take away any chance I had of surviving,” she said at the time.

In four years, Moody sent more than 30,000 messages, described in court as threatening, vile and abusive. During 14 hours in July 2018, he sent her 652 messages, amounting to one message every 90 seconds.

In one message, he described her as being “riddled with cancer”. In another, while she was on holiday without him, he said he hoped she would “get raped and bleed”.

The book of evidence ran to 30,000 pages.

Moody, who joined the Garda in 2000 and resigned just after his sentencing, stole Hanney’s cancer medication, knowing she could not afford to replace it. He stole her baby bag as she was on the way to the hospital to give birth to her son. He used his position as a garda to manipulate Hanney and her family.

The Kildare man was originally charged with 35 offences but prosecutors, worried about Hanney’s health at the time and her ability to give evidence at trial, agreed to a deal where he pleaded guilty to a single count of coercive control.

The case, and this week’s RTÉ documentary, shone a light on the pernicious nature of coercive control and the power abusers can wield if they are a member of An Garda Síochána.

Since the programme aired on Monday, Hanney has been contacted by many women going through a similar ordeal, including some whose abusers are gardaí. One of those women sat with Hanney in her kitchen on Thursday during her interview with The Irish Times.

“I watched her documentary and I just had to change the names and it’s my own story,” says the woman, who also suffered at the hands of a Garda.

She described getting a barring order in the Family Court against her abuser only for him to be promoted and given a firearm.

Gardaí are legally required to disclose to their employer the existence of an order against them. But there is no system in place to ensure they do and the Family Court’s in-camera rule legally prohibits it from informing Garda management of an order against a member.

“You can have a barring order and supervised access with your kids, then go into work, get your firearm and sit into a patrol car. You can legally control [the victim], harass them and manipulate them and it’s totally fine,” says the woman.

A Garda spokesman said that domestic orders, including barring orders, are issued in the Family Law Courts where proceedings are protected under legislation and that the Garda Síochána cannot impose an internal reporting requirement “which may breach an in-camera rule”.

Figures released in 2021 showed Garda management was aware of 21 serving members subject to barring orders. The real figure is likely higher.

Even after arrest for domestic violence, gardaí can remain in their roles. Moody was moved to a desk job after being arrested for breaching a barring order and was only suspended after his home was searched by the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI).

Dismissing a garda is much harder again and almost impossible without a formal conviction. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris recently warned he has been legally prevented from dismissing a small number of gardaí who pose a potential danger to vulnerable people.

“Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour and past behaviour in these cases has been reprehensible,” he said.

“There’s Paul Moodys in every division across the country,” says the woman in Nicola’s kitchen. “The force is riddled with misogyny.”

The woman believes a cultural change is needed within the Garda where she says “misogyny has been allowed to flourish. If you’re immersed in a culture 24/7 where these behaviours are okay and acceptable, then they start to become your norm.”

Hanney agrees there are serious shortcomings within the Garda but is at pains to stress the NBCI team which investigated her case was “amazing”. The court heard the investigating gardaí approached Hanney and asked her if she needed help after finding the abusive messages on Moody’s phone during a separate investigation.

“The team of guards I got were so professional and passionate about their jobs. These are the ones that take their jobs so seriously. They don’t want the Paul Moodys in there,” she says.

There are many other areas where the system also needs to improve, she says. There should be financial support for those leaving abusive relationships, she says, pointing out that a lack of money often forces victims to return to their abusers.

“When I left I had no shoes on my child’s feet. You can only go so many days living on someone else’s couch with your family,” she says.

She wants to see progress in a Bill brought before the Oireachtas in October which would give people the right to know if their new partner has previous convictions for domestic violence.

The Bill, known as Jennifer’s Law, after Jennifer Poole who was murdered by her partner who had a previous assault conviction, faces an uphill battle due to Ireland’s strict data protection laws. A similar law already exists in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Most of all she wants the law changed so that children are protected from domestic abusers. Her biggest fear is Moody regains access to her son and she is not in the house to protect him.

“I’m doing all of this to keep my son safe,” says Hanney.

She hopes that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will agree to a meeting where they can outline their proposals.

“I have not started this for nothing. At the end of the day something has to be done,” she says.

“If I have to fill this house with women to protect them, I will.”

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