Harassment

[flamingnoravera]

I'm trying to help a friend who had a three month relationship with a man she met via OLD. She lives in the Rep Ireland, he lives in the uk.

After 3 months she ended it with a sorry it's not working for me call to him. Since then he has bombarded her with emails, phone calls, letters to her and her mother, sometimes they are nasty and accusing her of being a hard evil bitch and others pleading to try again. She had blocked his email addresses but he has opened new accounts and continued. She has tried to block him on the phone but vodaphone say they cannot block international numbers.
She sent an email two weeks ago saying I'm formally asking you to stop now, I am feeling harassed and he continued.
Now he is sending emails asking her for places to stay in her home town in Ireland (he has been to her house and her mothers house in the ROE) she has done all she can to get him to stop but he will not take no for an answer.
Today I called the hq of his local police force to get advice, I got a (male) operator who just said she should log everything but if he's not threatening her then there's not much they can do. Then he said perhaps she should log it with her local police in Ireland. Frankly he gave me no confidence that he was taking this seriously. She's so stressed out that she is becoming hysterical, she is terrified he's going to turn up on her doorstep, she lives in a remote part of Ireland 10km from the nearest town and 2km from the nearest neighbour.
I've tried calling the nat Dom helpline today but can't get through.
Does anyone have any proper knowledge of where she stands. He is certainly harassing her. Should she report it in Ireland or UK or both? Will this be treated seriously? The guy I spoke to on the phone seemed almost flippant but as I was not the victim I suppose that might have affected how seriously he treated the call.
I'm spending hours on the phone daily counselling her and telling her to report it to the police but after my experience today I'm now not convinced they'll do anything.
Any advice please?

Is there anyone with any advice? Today she got a card in the post with a £50note into which was stuck a post it note with some unintelligible scribble and a card with more nonesense in it that she can't read.
I've told her to bag it up into a plastic bag and seal it and contact the police. But the issue is which police? She can't go to his police station because it's in the uk but will Irish police be able to do anything if he's in the uk.

I wondered if I should contact him and tell him to stop because the next step will be the police, perhaps if he knew that someone else knows it will stop.

She is beside herself and frightened to go home after work.

Don't you go contacting him. That will only fuel him more and your friend will get more of the same.

I'm currently going through something similar. Not from an ex. It's from a fall out. It's completely stressful. I'm in Ireland too. The cops were useless. I was told the same as well when I went to get some help'l from the Gardai - with threats of violei there's not much they can do - was what the officer said. He was saying it's a civil matter. It's bull crap really because harassment is again the law.

I don't know what police your friend should be going to. Harassment is criminal and they should be helping more. Your frt has someone who's is clearly out of their minds with anger and rage because she tried to finish things with him. There's no knowing what someone like that would do. What are the cops waiting for? At the very least the cops should be turning up on his doorstep to give him a warning but then there's no knowing what would happen there. It might anger him more.

I would say, for your friend to definitely change her number. Don't wait. Don't tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. Turn off her old number and don't turn it on again. He can then continue sending texts but she won't be getting them. He will probably see that too because of message delivery reports.

Don't respond in any way to him.

Close down social media accounts or deactivate them for now anyways. Hopefully it will all blow over. Reason for clost down social media is that he will probably search for her on Facebook or Twitter and a happy picture of her will be enot for him to continue.

Had similar and the DV section of the local police were brilliant. Few years ago before budget cuts but we got a restraining order, his computer was seized for evidence etc.

Might also be worth contacting the OLD website to warn them, they're under pressure to act now.

She needs to get a solicitor to send him a threatening letter. Thats what we used to do back in the day with harassing guys. Oh wait, we're still doing it because most police forces don't give a fuck...

Its coming in the post as well as phone but yes il will tell her to get a new number.

She's not yet reported to the police, her therapist told her just to stop feeding his narc supply by going no, but she has and is and it's not working.

There is a dedicated stalking officer in each constabulary in UK so I've suggested she phone and ask to speak direct to the stalking officer not the call centre. I've checked Irish law and there is an offence of invasion of privacy but I can't see any info on whether it's a guards matter or not. I've found the number for women's aid Ie and suggested she call them.

Point taken about me not calling him. I won't. I hope that a visit from a uniformed officer will be enough to make him stop. If not then I suppose it's an injunction. Luckily she's got family coming at the weekend so she'll not be totally alone then. But FFS the bloody police were so crap the bloke told me Ireland isn't in the EU so they couldn't do anything.