The man had found out from the work list in which shift the woman drives.
An ex-colleague who followed the bus driver along driving routes and bombarded the woman with thousands of messages has been jailed for 10 months and 10 days in suspended prison for stalking, making unlawful threats and breaching restraining orders in the district Sentenced. Court of North Karelia.
Read more: Prosecutors: Man forcibly strapped to bus driver’s back and chased repeatedly – shot woman in terror
The convicted person has been ordered to pay a total of 8,687 Euros to the woman as compensation.
The 37-year-old man from Joannesau was the woman’s partner from 2014 to 2022. As per the documents, he started stalking and monitoring the woman in 2016 itself. The man who engaged in the harassing communication had admitted that he was interested in his colleague.
The parties entered into an arbitration agreement in 2017, according to which the man shall not contact the woman through social media, text messages, phone calls or any other means.
However, the woman’s nightmare was not over for good. The male started following and tracking the female again in 2021. He also started contacting the woman.
The woman began to dread her work shift, as the man could appear at any time on the route or behind the bus in Joensuu. It went with a car and an electric scooter and was hidden behind sunglasses and a corona mask.
According to the woman, suddenly surveillance started at the bus stop. The man had found out from the work list in which shift the woman drives.
The woman said she reported the coworker’s harassment to her supervisor, or that she simply cried until the end of the shift.
Once a woman informed her husband to board the bus for support and protection. A colleague followed the bus in a car. The matter was pacified when the youth fled leaving the driver through the underpass.
When the woman got out of the bus a second time and switched off the main power, the man came to the scene and, according to the woman, declared that “you will no longer be alive after Thursday”.
The district court sentenced the man to a restraining order in December 2021, but the man continued to secretly send messages.
Regional prosecutor Taneli Laukkanen sought to punish the man in the District Court of North Karelia for stalking, making illegal threats and six violations of a restraining order.
The man denied all the allegations. He did not want to be tried in the district court.
The District Court has sentenced a 37-year-old man to a suspended prison sentence of 10 months and 10 days for stalking, making unlawful threats and four breaches of a restraining order. At the same time, the court has dismissed the allegations of violation of the stay order three times.
In the opinion of the court, the continuance of the harassment for one and a half years shows great reprehensibility.
In the district court’s opinion, the person’s actions are not simply a question of making contact through communication – but of “appearing in the interested party’s life cycle and following the interested party there”.
The court ordered the convicted person to pay compensation to the woman for a total of 3,900 euros for the suffering caused by the violation of liberty and peace, 100 euros for the costs of the investigation and 4,687 euros for court costs.
In addition, the man must pay a deductible of 1,534 euros for the woman’s attorney’s fees.
The district court’s decision is not legally binding, but can be appealed to the Court of Appeal of Eastern Finland.
