Margaret Loftus: Justice process was ‘as traumatising as abuse’

Updated / Tuesday, 20 Jan 2026 18:02

A former garda has said the process she endured taking her domestic abuse complaint through the judicial system was “as traumatising and damaging as the abuse” she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband.

Speaking with Prime Time presenter Miriam O’Callaghan in her first broadcast interview, Margaret Loftus told of how she was attacked by Trevor Bolger in Mayo in 2012. They were both serving gardaí at the time.

Bolger, who is currently suspended from the force, was convicted of an assault offence on Friday, after more serious charges of threats to kill and coercion were dropped following a plea agreement.

Ms Loftus criticised the plea deal, saying it made her feel like “justice was never going to be in the spirit of what justice should be”.

The maximum sentence for the assault offence is six months. Bolger received a three-month suspended sentence on Friday. The court heard in mitigation that he cared for an elderly parent and has since stopped drinking alcohol.

Ms Loftus said the day she learned of the plea deal was “one of the hardest days along this whole journey”.

“It hit me like a bus. I told them when they delivered that news that I was insulted by it, and I got very upset by it because I knew then, and especially a plea deal for this and full facts not to be given was just an extra blow.”

She said the process had taken many years and left her “very dismayed that this is the judicial process that is available to victims”.

The assault took place in 2012, when Ms Loftus and Bolger travelled to Mayo for her brother’s 30th birthday. Ms Loftus remembers watching her husband across the bar that night.

“He just kept staring over at me for the entire night and I just knew by his face that something had been triggered,” she said.

She said she left the party early as she was breastfeeding and knew her child would need to feed at midnight. When they returned home, the mood shifted quickly.

“He started giving out to me. How dare I speak to my family, who did I think I was, leaving him standing at a bar on his own.”

What followed was a “prolonged sustained attack,” she said, that lasted for over an hour, or an hour and a half.

“He started hitting me, kicking my back, pulling my hair. He held me up against the wall.”

Her phone was off, and she said the situation was too erratic to make it possible to turn it on and reach for help.

“I didn’t have time to get my mobile phone to turn it on to call 999,” she said.

“The only way that I de-escalated that situation was I had to get on my knees in front of him, and I had to swear to God that I would never have anything to do with my family again.

“I sat in the bed for the entire night, sitting up with my children in both arms,” she added.

“And I prayed to God that night. I said the ‘Hail Mary’ for the entire night.”

When Ms Loftus later attempted to report the assault, she said she encountered resistance within her own organisation, An Garda Síochána.

“The pushback I got was mostly an attitudinal pushback,” she said, describing what she called “an accepting culture”.

“When I informed them that I had got a barring order and that I had been violently assaulted, there was no reaction. There was no action taken after it.”

After she pursued the issue internally and directly to assistant commissioner level, senior gardaí intervened and a formal investigation proceeded. Ms Loftus has praised the senior investigating officer – the now Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly – for his role in that process.

“I think he has brought a new zest for truth, honesty, professionalism, and impartiality into policing in Ireland,” she said.

Ms Loftus said she has confidence in how gardaí now respond to domestic violence cases involving the public, but not when the alleged perpetrator is a member of the force.

“I am not confident that they’re addressing internal problems with members who are perpetrators themselves.”

“This experience has brought me to my knees. It has broken me, and it went unchecked,” she said.

After Bolger was formally investigated and interviewed, but before he was charged, Ms Loftus said “he was promoted and given a State-issued firearm”.

The toll of the experience also extended beyond her, to her family.

Her father, now 80 years of age, attended court with her on the day of sentencing. Her wider family supported her through years of hearings and adjournments.

“They came on this journey with me,” she said. “They carried the pain of this. They came to every court appearance with me.

“It’s not just the victim it affects. It’s the whole family. It’s the whole family unit.

“I’m very dismayed that this is the judicial process that is available to victims,” she said.

Still, she believes pursuing the case was necessary.

“Silence will only ever protect abusers,” she said. “Regardless of the sentencing… it has been publicly acknowledged that he is an abuser and a perpetrator of domestic violence.

“For anyone who lives in a situation of domestic violence, it’s like living in a concrete box with no way out,” she said.

“No matter how hard the judicial system has been for me, it still has been better than being in that relationship.”

Now she said she wants other women to hear what she once needed to hear herself.

“The only way perpetrators are going to continue to flourish is by us staying quiet,” she said.

“I cannot urge enough to anyone listening to me here tonight to please come forward. There is a wonderful life after abuse.”

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The full interview will feature on the 20 January edition of Prime Time at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.