Restraining order, fine for man who harassed ex-lover

A man has been fined €3,000 and placed under a restraining order after he was found guilty of harassing a woman he met on an online dating site.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke found Edgar Bonnici Cachia, 64, of Birkirkara, guilty of harassment and relapsing, but cleared him of several other charges including extortion, threatening behaviour and unlawful use of telecommunications equipment.

The court heard the woman testify how she had been in an “intimate relationship” with the accused between February and April 2010, after the two had met on an internet social networking site.

The woman had ended the relationship after she learned that Bonnici Cachia had been found guilty of defrauding an elderly lady. After this, she received a series of emails, phone calls and text messages from the accused, demanding an explanation and eventually changed her phone number, ensuring her new number was ex-directory.

But Bonnici Cachia succeeded in obtaining her new number and persisted in harassing her, also calling her family. These calls only stopped in July 2010, when the accused began serving a prison sentence.

The woman claimed that he threatened to intervene in the annulment proceedings she was undergoing at the time, if she would not tell him the reason for cutting him off. She alleged that he had claimed that he would speak with an “important Monsignor in the church.”

Bonnici Cachia claimed that he was a rich and influential man and that he would testify in her annulment proceedings, adding that if he was not summoned he “would write to the Vatican and then you will know my power.”

It was further alleged that Bonnici Cachia had also spoken to an ordained psychologist, who the woman had been consulting.

The court however felt that only the charge of harassment was sufficiently proven, finding him guilty of that charge. As the acts at issue took place within five years of a previous sentence, he was also found guilty of relapsing. The court imposed a €3,000 fine and ordered the issuing of a three year protection order in favour of the woman.