{"id":480545,"date":"2026-06-03T07:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480545\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T07:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:17:07","slug":"woman-ordered-to-vacate-home-after-attack-on-pregnant-tenant-led-to-emergency-c-section-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480545\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman ordered to vacate home after \u2018attack\u2019 on pregnant tenant led to emergency C-section \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman has been ordered to leave her rented accommodation after a Residential Tenancies Board<\/a> (RTB) tribunal heard she allegedly assaulted a \u201cheavily pregnant\u201d tenant who subsequently required an emergency Caesarean section.<\/p>\n

Ciara Butler, a mother of three, received a seven-day termination notice from Co-operative Housing Ireland after the incident involving another resident at Djouce Hall, Bray<\/a>, Co Wicklow<\/a>, in February last year.<\/p>\n

The woman was later admitted to hospital and had to undergo an emergency Caesarean section, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

Eimear Kiernan, a representative for the landlord, alleged that before Butler learned there was CCTV footage of the incident, she claimed \u201cshe was the one who had been assaulted\u201d. She said the video evidence was shocking and \u201cspoke for itself\u201d. <\/p>\n

Although the landlord had not issued the seven-day notice lightly, Kiernan noted \u201cthere was a threat to the life of a baby\u201d. Had the landlord not taken action after the incident, the estate could become \u201clawless\u201d, she added.<\/p>\n

Butler told the tribunal she had hoped the matter could be \u201coverlooked\u201d. She said she felt she should have been given a warning rather than a termination notice.<\/p>\n

At the time of February\u2019s hearing she said she had a two-week-old baby and two other children and they had \u201cnowhere to go\u201d. She noted that the other tenant was no longer at the development and said she had \u201cnever been in trouble before\u201d.<\/p>\n

Butler claimed the incident was the result of the other tenant \u201cgoing for her\u201d in the lobby of the building earlier that day. She said she used her son\u2019s bicycle to \u201ccycle away to escape\u201d this alleged incident, which left her \u201cshaking\u201d.<\/p>\n

She sought to adjourn the hearing on two occasions as she wished to introduce further video footage of the lobby into evidence. <\/p>\n

However, representatives for the landlord said they reviewed the CCTV, and no footage showed Butler and the other tenant in the lobby at the same time.<\/p>\n

She also submitted messages showing the other tenant telling her to \u201ccome down\u201d to her door. Butler told the tribunal she went believing the pair could \u201ctalk things out\u201d but claimed the other tenant \u201cspat\u201d in her face.<\/p>\n

The tribunal did not accept that she went to the other tenant\u2019s door with a view to \u201csorting out matters\u201d, saying video footage of the incident \u201cshowed clearly\u201d that Butler was the aggressor.<\/p>\n

The tribunal ruled that the footage showed a \u201cphysical assault on a visibly pregnant woman\u201d, adding that it was satisfied Butler had engaged in \u201cphysical violence\u201d.<\/p>\n

It found the notice of termination to be valid and ordered Butler to vacate the property within 21 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has been ordered to leave her rented accommodation after a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal heard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5981,61,60,13696,82,7469],"class_list":["post-480545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-bray","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-residential-tenancies-board-prtb","tag-science","tag-wicklow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}