A Mullingar woman has withdrawn a complaint against her boyfriend of assaulting and falsely imprisoning her, saying some of the complaint had been lies, Mullingar District Court heard on Thursday.
Mark Donoghue of 22 Valley Cottages appeared before the court on a number of counts of assaulting Gemma Kelly, causing her harm at their shared home on dates between June 2 and June 6 last year and of falsely imprisoning her between June 2 and June 3.
Inspector Jarlath Folan said the Director of Public Prosecutions was aware of Gemma Kelly’s attitude and said she was to go before the court to explain herself.
Ms Kelly said she recalled making the statements but told the court “I don’t want to go ahead”.
When asked why, she said “I was lying about some of the things,” specifically “that he assaulted me”.
She told the court she was making her statement under oath and of her own free will.
Judge Neilan said it was not clear to him that Ms Kelly was acting of her own free will and reminded her that she could be charged with wasting Garda time.
However, he also pointed out that the indictable offences with which Mr Donoghue was charged “only die with the accused” and that she could choose to give evidence “at any time”.
Despite the fact that her statement contained lies, he advised her that she should not be afraid to contact Gardaí if she is assaulted again by anyone.
