A woman says an ex-government employee doggedly pursued her after she ended their two-year relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The defendant’s judge-alone trial,\u00a0on\u00a0two counts of breaching a protection order, began at the Dunedin District Court this morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The complainant told the court she and the man began\u00a0communicating following attending a social event, but by March 2023 she\u00a0ended the relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’d\u00a0tried to talk to\u00a0him\u00a0but he was\u00a0real\u00a0dismissive,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a period of silence, the defendant\u00a0resumed contact, allegedly telling his ex-girlfriend it had been “the worst week of his life”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman said it was the start of several months of\u00a0unwanted\u00a0contact which resulted in two police safety orders being\u00a0issued\u00a0in her\u00a0favour\u00a0and, finally, a protection order in September 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is alleged the defendant breached that order by briefly approaching the woman at St Clair\u2019s Long Dog Cafe in October that year and again in January 2024 when she\u00a0encountered\u00a0him several times by the beach on one day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She described him on those occasions\u00a0exhibiting\u00a0a “piercing” and “intimidating” look.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, in cross-examination, counsel Anne Stevens KC suggested the cafe was one her client frequented\u00a0and said the sunglasses he was wearing would have obscured any\u00a0supposed glare\u00a0he gave her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The witness\u00a0accepted\u00a0he never spoke or gestured to her on either occasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also\u00a0detailed several episodes which took place\u00a0after their\u00a0break-up, before\u00a0the protection order was imposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At one point, the court\u00a0heard,\u00a0she was working in North Otago when she received a package from the\u00a0defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside were photos of the pair and one of their\u00a0favourite\u00a0spots on Dunedin\u2019s Middle Beach, where they used to sit atop the sand dunes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was frightened because I couldn\u2019t remember telling him where that address was,\u201d the\u00a0woman\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The witness said she was\u00a0struggling\u00a0to manage the break-up\u00a0and contacted a police officer and family friend about her dilemma.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0former couple\u00a0later bumped into one another\u00a0at a function and found a secluded spot where they spoke for an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The complainant said her ex told her “he\u00a0wanted to basically marry me and stuff like that” then quizzed her about her new boyfriend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Mike Brownlie asked her why she continued to engage with the defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was trying to manage [his] expectations and behaviour. I didn\u2019t\u00a0want to upset him. He made me feel like I\u2019d\u00a0basically ruined\u00a0his\u00a0life\u00a0and\u00a0I\u00a0felt bad,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was fearful if I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0do what [he] wanted . . . what would happen. He\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0shown any signs of giving up. I began to feel at that point there was no getting away from him.”<\/p>\n
But in cross-examination, the woman accepted there had been no overt threats of harm made by the defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of their\u00a0final\u00a0organised\u00a0meet-ups\u00a0took place at the beach\u00a0but there was no\u00a0reconciliation or change in the dynamic, according to the witness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I tried to highlight to him how I was feeling, how his\u00a0behaviour\u00a0was making me feel. He just took no\u00a0accountability\u00a0and it was my fault and he had no awareness of how anything he was doing was\u00a0impacting\u00a0me,” she told the court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was scared. I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0understand why he\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0stop,\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0leave me alone,\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0move on.”<\/p>\n
The trial, before Judge Hermann\u00a0Retzlaff\u00a0is scheduled to run for three days.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman says an ex-government employee doggedly pursued her after she ended their two-year relationship.\u00a0 The defendant’s judge-alone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-298188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}