A man who used “gross violence” and threatened to have his ex-wife killed was sentenced to a total of seven months at Galway District Court on Monday.
Ivan Pantskhava (44 ) with an address at 63 Tara Grove, Wellpark, and previously of 111 Castlelawn Heights Headford Road, was brought in custody before Judge Mary Fahy and pleaded guilty to assault and two counts of contravening a barring order.
Inspector Pat McHugh told the court that on January 3, 2009 gardai received a call to go to an address in Caislean Thorlaigh, Doughiska, and there they spoke to a woman who said that she had been punched in the face. The inspector explained that the injured party, who had a visible black eye, had been in a relationship with the defendant but later took out a safety order against him. On March 31 a statement was taken from Pantskhava in which he claimed that he only pushed her.
On July 18 the injured party called gardai stating that her ex-husband had jumped over her back wall, come into the garden, and had put her in fear. When gardai arrived the defendant was seen running from the scene. On August 27 at 5pm a friend arrived at the injured party’s home claiming that the defendant had followed her to the house. The defendant was then seen looking through the front window but seemed to have left the scene. However he later rang the doorbell and barged his way through when the door opened. Inspector McHugh said that Pantskhava then threatened the injured party by saying that if he goes to jail he would kill her and that there were people just a call away.
Defence solicitor Valerie Corcoran said that her client did not go into the house, that there were three people in the house at that time and none of them had made a statement regarding any threats.
Judge Fahy said that there was “no doubt” the injured party is afraid of the defendant.
The injured party then told Judge Fahy that she has decided to move out of Galway as she did not feel safe anymore.
“He showed gross violence and made threats towards this woman,” said Judge Fahy.
Pantskhava was then convicted and sentenced to five months for the assault and a further two months, to run consecutively, for the two counts of contravening the barring order. The sentence was backdated to October 1.
