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A victim of domestic violence was forced to leave her home and friends for fear that her ex-partner would find her and attack her again, a court has heard.
Tefan Sorici held the woman captive in his home, kicked her, strangled her and told her that he would “serve a sentence” for her life.
The 10-hour ordeal only ended when the woman jumped from her first-floor window and ran barefoot to a nearby pub where a customer called the gardaí.
Sorici, 40, of Dorset Street, Dublin, pleaded guilty in Dublin Circuit Court to assaulting and injuring the woman at her home in the city center on July 14, 2016.
Garda Damien Noonan told the court that the woman was taking her young son to school when she saw Sorici hiding behind a wall.
She thought he was in prison, but later learned that he had only been released that morning, the court heard.
Sorici told him to go back inside and he took his phone and found text messages from the woman’s new partner.
He began to suffocate and kick her and said he was prepared to “do more time for my life,” the court heard.
He told her that “he was giving her 24 hours to leave the country” and accused her of destroying his life by obtaining prohibition orders against him.
The court heard that the man has multiple convictions for violating domestic violence prohibition orders.
Judge Pauline Codd noted that Sorici also humiliated the woman when she used her phone to call her parents in Moldova and tell them she deserved to be punished for seeing another man.
The woman told the court that she was placed in a shelter by Women’s Aid and later relocated out of the capital due to “extreme danger” she was in.
Sorici went into hiding, but Gardaí arrested him in November 2019 and has been in custody ever since.
The victim said she was concerned about what would happen when Sorici is released from prison again.
Fear
The court heard that the attack left her with bruises on her face, neck and wrists.
Judge Codd said the attack robbed the woman of her remaining sense of security and left her living in constant fear.
He suspended the final year of a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence on the condition that Sorici keep the peace and come forward to be evaluated for a domestic violence program.
The judge ordered that he have no contact with the victim.
Herald
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