Person harassing my family!

mc81

Hi,

A relative off mine was convicted off a serious offence over 15 yrs ago and put away, they died 10 years ago. A person known to the family was giving us a hard time and local garda who knew my relative very well told us to let them know if we had any trouble. Unfortunately these garda have now either moved location or retired so we cant go to them about this issue.

We have been informed that this same person is still speaking about our relative as if they are still alive, and calling them awful things to complete strangers in public areas. They were also overheard making a very serious false accusation against my relative to a complete stranger. We have protected younger relatives from all off this but because we have now been informed that it is happening again we dont know where we stand legally.

This person is extremely dangerous and has got alot of people into trouble over the years so we need to be careful how we approach them. Even the garda are very aware off them and have received thousands of complaint over the years about them.

Is this something that we could send them a solicitors letter for talking about and naming our relative in the way they did so or is it possible to get a formal Garda warning put to them.

I would really appreciate your advice as this has really upset the family.

Pro Hoc Vice

Just to clarify, the person has said some very bad things about a dead relative, speaks about the dead relative as if he is alive, and made serious allegations about dead relative. Has the person said anything to the family or made any allegations about living members?

I'm not sure their is much you can do about someone talking about a dead relative, you can't defame the dead and the fact the person got a 15 year sentence if alive it would even make defamation proceedings more difficult.

Peregrinus

I agree with infosys. There isn't a great deal that you can do, legally, and I can't see that any good at all will come from you, or anyone else, making any kind of approach to this person to try and get them to tone down their act.

I appreciate your desire to protect younger family members from being hurt, but I'm afraid the most effective think you can do to protect them from being hurt by this is to prepare them for hearing about it, and teach them to understand that their dead relative, whatever his failings, is not the person described by this psycho.

IITYWYBMAD

This is not advice, and I'd be wary of commenting on your specific circumstances.

Firstly, infosys, the OP did not say his/her relative was sentenced to 15 years. It was 15 years ago.

Secondly, the deceased cannot be defamed.

There have been cases were a persons reputation has been brought into question after their death, and malicious falsehoods regarding their reputation spread. I have come across a case where this happened, and the family of the deceased publicly called the accuser a liar. It caused him to sue them. Unable to prove the allegations, the person lost the case.