‘A prisoner in her own life’ – Waterford man subjected woman to months of horrific abuse
Waterford Courthouse.
A Waterford man will serve 27 months in prison for his months-long abuse of a young woman.
Keith Moore (32), of 25 Orchard Drive, Ursuline Court, pleaded guilty to six charges at Waterford Circuit Court, including one count of coercive control, one count of Section 3 assault, one count of criminal damage and theft and one count of threatening to distribute imagery taken without consent.
The abuse took place in Waterford during dates between February to June 2023.
Moore pleaded guilty to the charges in June this year, on the day the matter was about to be empanelled for trial. He was taken into custody pending a probation report.
On Tuesday, December 16, he appeared via video link before Judge Eugene O’Kelly for his sentencing.
Moore and the woman began a relationship in late 2022. A few months into the relationship, he began exhibiting controlling behaviour, messaging the woman thousands of abusive messages. In many messages, he threatened to murder her with an iron bar. In one passage, he threatened: “To rape her, he would cut her up with a knife and rape her with a knife.”
He took a picture of her while she was taking a shower, without her knowledge. When she discovered that he took the photos she asked him to delete them, which he refused to do. Moore threatened to put the photos on Snapchat if she ever left him.
He strangled her at a hotel in April 2024 after she told him she was leaving him, kicking her and biting her on her collarbone. The attack left her in fear for her life.
In June 2023, he destroyed her makeup and jewellery.
On a date in July 2023, he stole nearly €500 from her bank account and transferred the money into his own Paddy Power account.
The abuse came to light at a family event when the victim’s young niece saw the abusive messages on her phone and her family intervened to help get her to safety. She reported the abuse at Waterford Garda Station and was able to obtain a safety order from the District Court. She later gained a five-year safety order against the defendant.
At his sentencing hearing, defence counsel Tom Giles Kelly BL spoke of the "largely positive" probation report. However, he noted that the probation officer stated that Moore was prone to "minimisation and contradiction" of the experiences of his victim and lacked insight into the effects of his abuse on her, as well as apportioning blame on to her.
Judge O’Kelly said that the coercive control went on for months as Moore used the photos to control and abuse his victim.
Judge O’Kelly said: “She requested him to delete the pictures which he refused to do, he held the photos over her.”
He said that the abuse made her a "prisoner in her own life".
In her victim impact statement, the women stated that she had to give up her job due to the stress and the trauma of Moore’s abuse. She has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and is plagued with depression, anxiety and panic attacks.
She stated that she used to be a "happy, outgoing and confident" person.
“He took the best parts of me away,” she stated.
Moore was given a headline sentence of three years for coercive control and threats to distribute intimate material (under Coco’s Law), four years for assault, and two years for criminal damage and theft. The coercive control and threats were reduced to two years and three months in mitigation. The assault charge was reduced by a year, with the final nine months suspended for 18 months.
In total, he will serve two years and three months in prison, backdated to June 20, 2025.
Moore was reported to have no previous convictions and had not come to the adverse notice of Gardaí before and after the abuse was reported. He claimed to have "self-referred" to the MEND program and also claimed to have had struggled with cocaine addiction.
