Obsessed stalker harassed schoolteacher for 19 years, court told

A woman who has suffered continuous harassment for the past 19 years by an obsessed stalker had to be escorted from court this morning after shouting at him when she could bear his smug demeanour no longer.

The unbearably cocksure accused insisted on conducting his own defence - necessitating magistrate Aaron Bugeja to patiently intervene several times when the man had behaved incorrectly.

Inspector Kylie Borg from the Zebbug police station told the court that during the month of September, she had received a letter addressed “to the inspector, haz-Zebbug,” signed by the accused.

“His obsession has persisted for a long time,” observed the lawyer. “Obsession?”, interrupted the accused. “This case, whatever the end result of it may be, is simply a stepping stone to Strasbourg. I thank you Dr Azzopardi for giving me a leg-up to my goal!” The accused

In the letter, he alleged that in the past he had been intimately involved with the woman, who works as a teacher. He told the court that he had been a minor at the time but that the woman was already an adult and alleged that he had been molested by her.

In October 2015, the police had called him in and heard him out. But when Inspector Borg had checked the two person’s relative birthdates, she had only found a difference of six months. Borg told magistrate Aaron Bugeja that the dates he had given pointed to the alleged relationship having taken place when he was already 17 years old, and therefore not a minor.

She had explained to him that this was not a case of sexual abuse of a child and that the contents of the letter could be taken to be defamatory and may also constitute harassment. The passage of 20 years since the alleged incident also meant that the case was time-barred, the inspector recalled telling him.

That September, the inspector had been copied into an email explaining the allegations, which had been sent by the accused to the headmasters of the school where the man believed the woman worked as a teacher. The letter alleged that together with being a teacher, the woman was also a pedophile “as she had abused him when he was a minor.”

The deluded man had also sent a letter containing his allegations to the Curia, so as to object should she ever try to get married. 

The accused nodded vigorously and looked around the courtroom beaming with pride as the inspector read out his various correspondence.

Inspector Borg had spoken to the woman about the allegation of defilement and the woman had told the police that she had never heard of him, much less had an intimate relationship with the accused.

In 1997, the court had issued a protection order against the accused in favour of the woman, the inspector added.

The accused, a civil servant, had told the police that he had found out where she worked from the internet. He was constantly sarcastic, said the inspector, adding that he had repeatedly insisted that he wanted the case to go to the European courts,  “to have her investigated for paedophilia.” 

When he had gone to collect the charges from the police station in person, the accused had dismissed the woman’s lawyer as “a hobbyist” to the officers there, before alleging that the police, the courts and the lawyers were all in cahoots against him, she said.

Inspector Borg confirmed that the woman had filed a criminal complaint against the accused in April 2000 - at which point the harassment had already been going on for three years, alleging misuse of electronic equipment, defamation and harassment.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi, appearing parte civile for the woman, cross-examined the witness about the police report filed in 2000.

“His obsession has persisted for a long time,” observed the lawyer. “Obsession?”, interrupted the accused. “This case, whatever the end result of it may be, is simply a stepping stone to Strasbourg. I thank you Dr Azzopardi for giving me a leg-up to my goal,” said the man, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Turning to the magistrate, the accused went on. “There are much graver things than these trivialities,” he said, earning him a warning from the magistrate.

“It is an emotional matter and there are no emotional courts in this country, only criminal and commercial,” explained the man. “In these situations I can be expected to make emotional outbursts.

"I am fulfilling three roles, here. That of the accused, the pseudo-aggressor and the lawyer,” he complained, before demanding that an underage boy, who he insisted had enjoyed a sexual relationship with the teacher, be summoned to testify. The court was told however, that police investigations had cast doubt on the boy’s very existence, much less traced him.

The accused proceeded to ask the witness whether she had informed the education department "so that disciplinary proceedings could take place." She replied that it was not up to the police to do so, although she had indeed checked with the department and none had been filed.

He then asked whether the police were saying the case was time-barred or had never taken place,  insisting that this would be “relevant when the case goes to Strasbourg.”

“I could not summon the boy to testify, because I did not expect them to sink so low as to not even acknowledge his existence,” said the man.

The prosecution ended its submissions by requested that the court order the accused "not to call it up every day."

Amidst the accused’s attempts at interrupting him, Azzopardi informed the magistrate that underneath an online court report from the 7 January, the accused had expressed sympathy with a man who had been jailed for stalking. He had written that the sentence was meant to “protect little red riding hood,” - another phrase which the accused had used several times in his letters.

The supercillious man stared fixedly at Azzopardi and continuously attempted to ridicule his submissions throughout the sitting, provoking the normally unflappable lawyer to angrily bang his fist on the table at one point.

“Listen here my friend, enough is enough...” began the lawyer, before being brought to order. Ever-patient, the magistrate then warned the accused that he would be guilty of contempt if he persisted with this behaviour.

Azzopardi requested the court issue a protection order as well as a ban on the publication of the woman’s name - but the accused objected, insisting that she must be named. It was at that point that the woman became distraught and started shouting at the accused, before being escorted from the courtroom. 

The accused calmly explained that the woman’s previous lawyer had “seen fit to get his government employment terminated and so she had to be exposed as a paedophile.”

Recalcitrant to the last, even when handed the summons for the next sitting, the accused complained that it spoke of a compilation of evidence, and that these proceedings were summary in nature. The prosecution promised to amend the trivial oversight.

Magistrate Bugeja ordered a ban on publication of all names of all the parties involved in the case, noting that the "extreme circumstances" of this case justified the measure.

The case continues in March.