That bizarre evening

 According to emails from me to Michael's doctor friend, it was August 13th, 2024 that this happened. 

Michael had emailed saying he would meet me at the penthouse and we would go for a meal. He said we were going to discuss plans for my future. He made it sound exciting.

I was looking forward to seeing him. My mentor, my rescuer, my future. The good in life after all the bad.

And I was left devastated. 

When he arrived at the penthouse I opened the door with a smile, delighted to see him, but he just stood there with his head bowed, his hair was grey, which was strange as his hair is white, but I realise that his hair must have been sweaty, turning it grey. He very obviously wasn't okay, I was holding the door open for him to come in but he kind of stood there not looking at me and then said 'Can I come in?' as if the door wasn't being held open for him, and I started to get the vibe that things were weird.

He came in and pushed out onto the terrace and sat down. He'd muttered something about my teeshirt being nice as he passed me, and I was a little confused and embarrassed, so I put on a sweatshirt later. 

On the terrace he didn't talk about my future, he started a rambling ultimatum where he said I was to get HAP and Disability Allowance or I couldn't have the apartment at Wellesley Court which he had offered me. He was rambling but obnoxious and forceful, he told me that if I came back to Dublin when he'd given me the apartment then he wouldn't house me. This was one of his mantras and it made no sense until the end when it was obviously a cop-out, a loophole because he had no accommodation for me.

He was saying some weird things, he was talking about us having a meal when he'd visited his other tenants, he laughed in a weird way and said 'We'll try not to get you too drunk!' It scared me, he knew I didn't drink, but it was almost as if I was someone else, that he didn't know he was with me. 

He then also told me he'd arranged (without my consent) for 7 people to be put into my life in Limerick as 'he wouldn't have time for me', this was profoundly shocking and distressing to me, this was without my knowledge or consent and he would have discussed me with them without my consent and released information about me, this was while he was still trying to blame 'mental health' for me walking out on him. And one of the people he'd involved was his former mentee at the school, who shouldn't have been in his life now as an adult. The seeds of concern about him and schoolboys really started there. 

He made comments about the plants, the disruption with the house sit and the breakdown meant they'd been untended and not thrived in the heatwave and they weren't doing well and I felt ashamed. He was rambling about some garden he'd been to, and then he was going on about how I could dream of being head gardener there. This hurt, he knew my health put me out of the industry and to be female, unemployed and not fit meant I would be unlikely to be a gardener again, let alone a head gardener. 

He then told me he had the information that the doctor was supposed to send to me, he told me this as he got up and left the terrace, without offering to give me the paperwork. 

He was raving, and I was hurt, but it got worse. He abruptly asked to look round the apartment, he went to the back windows and stared out, first office window, he told me he was 'looking for something' and then the bedroom window, it was weird. As he left the bedroom he mad a weird rambling comment about how some people would abuse me and that I needed to talk to someone, let it all out, it was weird and I realised he might be drunk. He wasn't implying I should talk to him, it was unclear what his angle was. He was not behaving normally.

He then said he was going over to the other penthouse to see his teenage boys, he didn't put it like that. He headed over there, they were in the block across the courtyard out the back. I was a little confused and embarrassed about his comment about my teeshirt, which I had bought in Limerick when I was house sitting, so I put a jumper on. I watched as he came back, as he left the other block, I saw him stumble, I was more certain he was drunk. 

He took me over the road for a meal, where we'd had a meal before. But this time instead of the normal waiting for the staff to come and take a drinks order and food order, he went in and he brought the drinks out, mine, a coke, was already opened. Michael then sent me up to the Dart station to top up my leap card, saying that the shared starter would be there by the time I got back. I was increasingly worried, not least because of his comments about getting me drunk, and when I got back, I didn't touch my drink. Michael had several large drinks. 

He rambled. He spent a lot of time, as usual, on his phone, talking, texting and emailing, as if I wasn't there. I was secondary entertainment. I felt alienated and hurt, not so much by him doing that, as he always did, but by what he'd said to me, his ultimatum about Wellesley court and his 'If you come back to Dublin, I won't house you'. 

He kept saying strange things, he was rambling about how he was going to Highgrove and he hoped to meet 'The King', he then started trying to push onto me that I wanted to do this, but in a weird way 'You haven't yet, but that doesn't mean that you won't'. It was similar to that thing about me being a head gardener at a place I'd never heard of. 

During that evening he changed the apartment I would be at, from Wellesly Court, to first one and then another apartment in the Strand Apartment complex just over from Wellesley Court. I couldn't keep up. But to me, the matter was dead, his ultimatums were impossible to fulfil. All I could desperately think was to get to Lisa the next day and talk it through with her, she was openly concerned about what Michael was doing and the impact on me.

As we sat there, I was so thirsty but I didn't dare drink my drink, Michael's comments combined with him being alone with the opened bottle of coke meant I didn't dare, he was behaving too bizarrely. I have to drink to eat and I was so thirsty. I couldn't eat my meal. Michael seemed to become aware that something was wrong, but he was vague, buzzed out by alcohol or something else. He said why didn't Lisa join us for a meal sometime? Lisa wouldn't even come over to the apartment, she was not happy about Michael. 

Michael gave up in the end, slurred something about having another apartment to visit before he went home, I was worried about how he'd actually get home safely, get the green bus safely from Burgh Quay to Annacotty, and from Annacotty Bridge to his house. He shook hands with me, seeming unaware that his hands were covered in BBQ sauce from the chicken wings. He'd eaten most of that starter by the time I'd got back from his sending me to the Dart station. He had told me that he was going on holiday but that I could contact him while he was away.

And he simply left me with the ultimatum and the knowledge that he'd obtained my medical data and had no intention of returning it. 

The next day I was due to meet Lisa for coffee, but I was too distressed and cancelled, sending her into a flat panic. I was too distressed to talk to anyone. I couldn't face my friends in Dun Laoghaire so I sat on the pier and cried. 

I emailed the doctor about the situation. Michael shouted at me and told me I wasn't to email the doctor, but he wouldn't hand back the paperwork, never has, not confirmed its destruction. But Michael backed down on the ultimatums. However, I had had enough, the situation was precarious and I had no idea what to do. Lisa was trying to support me, was praying, and tried to express her concerns, it was only at the end I listened to her and realised she'd been telling me all along that Michael was abusing me and that I should have got away from him.

Michael stole my medical data, and that evening when he was drunk, and onwards from there, he held it up to make me distressed. What he did to me was very terrible indeed but my biggest concern is that he has been grooming juveniles and vulnerable people into his life and playing with them for a long time, and presumably as he has no conscience, is still doing so, and could kill someone if he hasn't already. His actions in the end nearly killed me.