Family Violence Initiative
CRIMINAL HARASSMENT:
A HANDBOOK FOR POLICE AND CROWN PROSECUTORS
APPENDIX A
CASE EXAMPLES
The following examples are based on actual case files. They show the impact of criminal harassment on the victim and their family. These cases are intended to tell the story to support information provided in the Part 2 – Guidelines for Police.
Case 1:
A man moved to a small community to work. He met a woman who worked in a local store but lived in an isolated farmhouse 20 minutes from town. He commented on their first meeting how frightening it must be to live as a woman alone, but that she shouldn’t worry, as he was not a stalker. A few days later, he appeared at her side while she was working at the store.
He met her days later at a community event that she attended with friends. Later, he arrived at her house while she was alone, preparing to go out for the evening. She invited him in but told him she had to leave soon. He talked about his repeated visits to the farmhouse when she was not there, and how glad he was to have found her at home. He spoke again of her isolated setting, and her vulnerability to attack. He accurately described her activities with her friends that day. She eased him out of her house and fled to her friends.
A mutual friend told the suspect that the woman was upset by his visit. The following morning, the suspect arrived at her door because he had left his coat at her house the night before. She did not answer. The suspect began to depart, then stopped and parked his vehicle so that it blocked her car. Then he returned to bang loudly on the door. Police were called.
The suspect gave a statement to the police indicating he was new in town, single and lonely, and the woman was friendly. He had run into her accidentally at the store, and later at a community event. When he came to visit, she invited him in for a drink, and he forgot to take his coat when he left. Later he heard that she was upset with him. He visited her house the next day to find out why, but no one was at home. As he was leaving, he saw a curtain moving, so he stopped his vehicle and ran back to see if she was, in fact, at home.
Case 2:
A man was obsessed with a young woman and had been stalking her for several years. The harassment took place at the victim’s home, her office in the city and a university campus. The victim was only a casual acquaintance of the accused, through a professional connection. The man refused to accept the woman’s decision to terminate the relationship. He engaged in a bizarre and obsessive pattern of harassment that included relentless e-mail messages, phone calls, “love” poems, personal contact, indirect contact and numerous communications that spread lies about the victim to others in their professional community. Collectively, this behaviour was intrusive and frightened the victim, leaving her feeling vulnerable and helpless.
The victim, her husband, her professional colleagues and, finally, the police asked the accused to stop the harassment. None of this deterred the accused, and he continued to harass the victim through other means, such as posting poems about her on his Web site, engaging in incidents of watching and besetting, and sending indirect communications through her colleagues.
Interviews with the victim, her husband and her colleagues yielded evidence that included hard copies of numerous e-mails relevant to the situation, a ranting taped phone message, a book of poetry that the accused gave the victim and poetry posted on the accused’s Web site.
In an interview, the suspect confessed to virtually all the alleged incidents, and admitted that an obsessive love of the victim had evolved into an obsessive hatred. A search warrant was conducted at the suspect’s residence and multiple exhibits were seized. The suspect was charged with criminal harassment.
Case 3:
The suspect stalked a woman by vehicle during three separate segments over the course of one hour. A police patrol stopped him and found him in possession of gloves, a balaclava and a video camera. Subsequent investigation revealed a lengthy history of sexually motivated stalking from 1979 to 1998. A search warrant of the suspect’s residence and vehicle revealed numerous surreptitious surveillance photos of other women (with similar hair colour and style) whom he had stalked. The suspect admitted to an uncontrollable compulsion. Interviews with the women shown in the photos revealed many other cases of stalking.
The accused was convicted. See R. v. Gerein, [1999] B.C.J. No. 1218 (Prov. Ct.) (QL); and remarks at sentencing: (April 7, 1999), Vancouver C39753-01-DD (Prov. Ct.).
Case 4:
The suspect chased his ex-girlfriend through the streets of a small town in his pickup truck. He had been previously convicted for choking her unconscious and beating her with a cane, and he came looking for her as soon as he was released from jail. Five weeks after chasing her with his truck, he attempted to cut the phone lines to her house. He smashed a sliding glass door with the butt end of a sawed-off shotgun, but she was able to escape through the bathroom window and run to her neighbour’s house. He shot and killed her friend and wounded his ex-girlfriend’s daughter as she pushed a younger sister to safety. He then set fire to the house and committed suicide in an upstairs bedroom.
[Previous] [Table of Contents] [Next]
|
