Kenicia Francis
A man whose harassment case against a young woman was dismissed in the All Saints Magistrate’s Court yesterday, reportedly returned to the home of the woman who filed the charges against him the same day he was released.
Twenty-five-year-old Oksana Lewis, a pharmacist from Swetes, is concerned for her safety as this would be the third time the man has shown up at her house and proceeded to banging on her door.
He seems to be under the impression that her house actually belongs to him, and she needs to “get out”, give him his keys and “stop messing with his head”.
She said she has been regularly checking the notifications since the first time the accused came to her house in the middle of the night on March 21 and ordered her to get out of “his” house.
“He was at my house ponging the door. He was upset saying that we are in his house. We kicked him out [and] he was like how dare we. He was aggressive, cursing out the police officers. I called the police, and everything was fine. But the second time this happened, he was at the door ponging down. It was just, it was a scary situation. Even when he came to court, there was no remorse, he was annoyed,” she explained.
Magistrate Ngaio Emanuel dismissed the case because the defendant had been remanded for three times the maximum sentence for his initial offense, and the case needed to be adjourned until September.
She also didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with a trial because she hadn’t received a psychological evaluation from Dr James King about his mental state.
After leaving court yesterday morning, Lewis said she went to work where she received a notification from her motion sensor cameras.
In a video recording taken by her security cameras, the man can clearly be seen and heard, dressed in the same clothes he was at court in, sitting on her gallery and yelling.
His comments were disorganised and incoherent ranging from saying she was acting childish by not giving him the keys to his house, to asking her if she doesn’t live anywhere and if she owns an iPad and if she has a place for his Ipad.
He was also yelling expletives and saying he wasn’t going to go to school, which prompted Lewis to call the police.
Lewis told Observer that she met the alleged perpetrator after her mother initially wanted to help him out by paying him to do some yard work around the house while she was overseas.
“She offered to give him some work to do in the yard, move some debris, just little odd jobs to help him along. About a year later, I don’t know what clicked mentally in him; I believe it’s drugs,” she said.
Lewis is thankful she happened to be at work when he showed up again.
“We have to be vigilant, especially as young women. Even if you want to help someone, you have to be cautious of what is happening, because you just never know,” she told Observer:
The police are likely to file new charges against him especially considering he wouldn’t leave her property until they showed up and removed him.
