Legal rights to handle Stalker

missyfirefly

I could do with some advice please.

12 months ago, my then fiancé (now husband), told me one morning while he was dropping me at the train station, he was quitting his job. This was not the first time in recent months that he had said he wanted to quit, but I had always been insistant that he not quit until he had another job lined up. His job could no way be construed to be a dream job, but it was a job nonetheless. Anyway on that particular morning he was so upset and he said he was so incredibly stressed that I could only respond with apologies that I had been encouraging him to remain in the job considering he was so stressed about it.

Later that night he told me what had happened. His job meant that he worked unsociable hours, so he would often wake during the night and have a browse through his phone. Anyway the night before he recieved a message on FB from a person he used to worked with that included a link to a fake FB profile. A fake profile set up in my husbands name....The creator of the profile had been a customer at his place of work. He knew immediately from looking through the profile who had created it i.e. had herself listed as in a relationship with this fake profile.

My husband went on to tell me that she had been sending him cards and many messages through FB that were completely unwanted and unnerving. The fake profile purporting to be him was the last straw. He needed to get away from there.

Whilst logged onto the laptop going through the ensuing rigmarole of trying to get the fake FB profile removed(no easy feat), he reluctantly showed me the messages she had been sending to him (from another fake profile set up under her young daughters name). Disturbing. We then noticed this 'Other' folder within messages. In there we found Thousands of messages from 2 other fake profiles (one in her sons name, and another in a random name). These were highly disturbing, this individual was having one way conversations with herself that, in laymans terms could only be described as the rantings of a crazy person. She was also sending graphic pictures of herself.

With my husbands line of work he would deal a lot with the Gardaí, so gave the local community Garda a ring for some advice. She said come down and they'd get the ball rolling. We spent hours taking screenshots of all the messages (impossible to export), loaded onto a usb. After which he send a message to all his close friends and family on FB that he was closing it down because of a crazy lady, and asked that if anyone revived any dubious messages either about him or from a fake profile.

It turned out that a few had received messages. His mother got some and ignored them, but his aunt who is a wonderful charitable person, gives up her time to SVP, was drawn in.... Morbid Threats of suicide from the sender meant that his aunt got sucked right in!

So we cancelled the FB profile. Point to note, she never actually sent any of the messages from her 'real' FB profile...

Story moves on and the Gardaí take a visit to her house, get her to go to the station on a few occasions, present her with the messages, get her family involved etc, etc...., within about 2 weeks she had checked herself into the psychiatric ward. She had been there before. We were all relieved, with utterings like 'hopefully she'll get the help she needs now'....

She was out three week later. She was free to leave whenever she wanted. Things were quiet for a while, but she somehow managed 2 things. 1. got his mobile number 2. Figured out my name.

She made a few calls and left a few messages on his phone. That number is now blocked.

Since about November she has started trying to make contact with me, FB request from a random fake FB profile, LinkedIn request under her real name and most recently Twitter... Asking me to make contact as 'there is a problem with ****' ??? i have not told my husband that she has been trying to contact me...

Ultimately the Gardaí said that they would hope that by bringing her in etc would make her see the errors in her ways... They also indicated that there isn't a whole lot else they can do.

I've to honestly admit that sometimes I feel like enlarging and printing out all those thousands of messages and sharing for the world to see!!! I try to think of the best possible way to inflict massive reputation damage... But then again she is clearly incredibly unstable and Lord knows what she might do.

Here are my current worries: *these are rhetorical*
How do I break the recent occurances to my husband without him becoming stressed?
Who else could she be messaging now that might believe Her rantings? ( she managed to get my name and his mobile number from someone)
She's seen where I work from viewing my LinkedIn profile, what if she contacts them?

*not rhetorical*
Has anyone any advice on where I should go from here. Is there anything within the law that is meaningful and enforceable?

Apologies for my war and peace post...

Graham

Go and see a solicitor who should be able to advise you of the most appropriate course of action. Maybe talk to your local Gardai again after reading this: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/law_enforcement/anti_social_behaviour_by_adults.html

punisher5112

I would cut off fb for starters change all phone numbers.

Make sure all security settings are high on all family fb.

Not really much cops can do here unless you are physically hurt and even at that who does time these days with all the suspended sentences.

Very sorry to hear about all the trouble you are all having.

vicwatson

Facebook, the root of many peoples problems, sorry to hear of yours

Pat Mustard

Putting it in the hands of the guards is a better way of dealing with a stalker with psychiatric problems, rather than hiring a solicitor.

See s.10 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.

See subsections 3 to 5 of that section, which gives the court the power to grant an order preventing such a stalker from communicating, approaching the person, etc., etc.

(3) Where a person is guilty of an offence under subsection (1), the court may, in addition to or as an alternative to any other penalty, order that the person shall not, for such period as the court may specify, communicate by any means with the other person or that the person shall not approach within such distance as the court shall specify of the place of residence or employment of the other person.

(4) A person who fails to comply with the terms of an order under subsection (3) shall be guilty of an offence.

(5) If on the evidence the court is not satisfied that the person should be convicted of an offence under subsection (1), the court may nevertheless make an order under subsection (3) upon an application to it in that behalf if, having regard to the evidence, the court is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice so to do.

If the stalker breaches a court order like this, call the guards. Always call the guards, never engage the stalker.

On a practical level, you need to resist the temptation to ever respond this person. The temptation to tell them to 'fcuk off' may be huge but that gives them what they are looking for; attention. Stalkers have to be starved of attention if they are to ever go away. Telling them to 'fcuk off' gives them that attention and gives them a reason to persist. You are not dealing with a normal person here. Just my opinion.

missyfirefly

Graham wrote: »

Go and see a solicitor who should be able to advise you of the most appropriate course of action. Maybe talk to your local Gardai again after reading this: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/law_enforcement/anti_social_behaviour_by_adults.html

Thanks for this Graham. I'm unsure as to whether the Gardaí have already given her a 'behaviour warning' in relation to this matter but it's certainly worth following up. I would also fall within the 1 month of most recent occurrence requirement.

missyfirefly

The Mustard wrote: »

Putting it in the hands of the guards is a better way of dealing with a stalker with psychiatric problems, rather than hiring a solicitor.

See s.10 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.

See subsections 3 to 5 of that section, which gives the court the power to grant an order preventing such a stalker from communicating, approaching the person, etc., etc.


If the stalker breaches a court order like this, call the guards. Always call the guards, never engage the stalker.

On a practical level, you need to resist the temptation to ever respond this person. The temptation to tell them to 'fcuk off' may be huge but that gives them what they are looking for; attention. Stalkers have to be starved of attention if they are to ever go away. Telling them to 'fcuk off' gives them that attention and gives them a reason to persist. You are not dealing with a normal person here. Just my opinion.

This is very clear thank you.

As for your practical advice, you're right. Despite the temptation at times to confront or respond I have neither acknowledged nor engaged with her. My husband did respond to her in the beginning in the form of pleading with her to stop.

missyfirefly

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on boards but recently logged back in and found this old post... I forgot I had posted this to be honest.

Anyway a quick update... I took your advice, ignored as best as we could but things got pretty intense, and came to a head when she contacted my employer at my place of work... we contacted the Gardai again and our case was transferred to a detective in another station closer to where we live.

We didn’t hear much from the Gardai for a long time, and the contacts from the ‘stalker’ had kind of stopped too so we left well enough alone. But then out of the blue, the detective contacted us: the stalker was charged, it went to court and received a conviction.

All in all, thanks for your advice, we left it with with Gardai as suggested by you guys, didn’t involve a solicitor and got the right outcome eventually. The link below is to the radio report (newspaper report behind paywall now).

https://www.live95fm.ie/news/live95-news/woman-who-carried-out-continuous-stream-of-persis/

punisher5112

Great outcome, hope it didn't take the 6 years though....
Hopefully that's the end of it

Thargor

Thanks for the update.