Carlisle woman was subjected to months of harassment

Kazimerz Puchalak, 40, was due to face a trial on an allegation that he stalked the same woman, but on the day of his scheduled trial the prosecution accepted his guilty plea to an alternative harassment without violence charge.

At the city’s Rickergate court, prosecutor Carl Gaffney outlined some of the behaviour that lay behind the charge.

It happened between May 7 last year and September 23, though the defendant did not accept doing all the things alleged.

Mr Gaffney said the harassment involved the defendant turning up uninvited to the victim’s home on more than one occasion and at times loitering nearby, staring at her. This happened on August 24, when Puchalak stood 30 metres from her home.

On June 22, the court heard, Puchalak arrived without invitation at the woman’s place of work in Carlisle, and on July 14, the defendant was in a car near the victim, also in her car, and he “smirked” in her direction.

The prosecutor continued: “On August 29, he shouted at her while she was in a Lidl supermarket car park, and on September 23 he stuck his middle finger up at her.”

The combination of the many incidents had caused the woman a “great deal of distress” and left her unable to work, said Mr Gaffney. Consequently, she wanted the court to impose a non-contact restraining order.

Adjourning so that a pre-sentence report can be prepared, magistrates set out strict bail conditions which aim to prevent the defendant having any contact with the victim, who like him lives at Borland Avenue, Botcherby.

The magistrates specified an exclusion zone for the defendant.

He is now banned from the area of Borland Avenue that is between Melbourne Park and its junction with Merith Avenue and he is also banned from a specialist shop near Carlisle city centre with which the victim is associated.

Puchalak will be sentenced on June 4.

A non-contact provision is likely to be a key feature of any restraining order that the court imposes at sentence to protect the victim.