An Aberdeen man has been found guilty of stalking his neighbour by staring at her through her bedroom window.
Sean Monaghan, 30, faced a charge that he stalked the 24-year-old woman by following her down the street, turning up at her door and attempting to connect with her on numerous social media sites for nearly a year.
Giving evidence at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, the woman said she’d caught Monaghan standing watching her through her bedroom window on more than 20 occasions.
A friend of the woman, who also gave evidence, told the court that she also caught Monaghan staring at her as she sat on the edge of her friend’s bed.
The woman said Monaghan’s actions had made her feel “vulnerable as a young woman” and “unsafe in her own home”.
Victim felt ‘threatened and scared’
During the trial, the woman told fiscal depute Eilidh Gunn that she became aware of Monaghan when he introduced himself to her in the street.
He then appeared at her front door inquiring if a parcel intended for him had been delivered to her home by mistake, despite them living in separate buildings.
Suspicious, the woman watched Monaghan as he left the building without enquiring about the parcel with anyone else in the block of flats.
It was around this time the woman noticed Monaghan staring into her bedroom from his living room window across the street.
Asked by Ms Gunn how it had made her feel, the woman said she had felt “quite threatened and scared” and “uncomfortable in her own home”.
When Monaghan knocked on her front door on a second occasion, the woman told the court she shut the door in his face as she “didn’t want him anywhere near her”.
Victim denies exaggerating
Monaghan then tried to add her on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which she immediately blocked.
However, soon after she found him waiting outside her flat when she left to go to work – he would then follow her about 150 metres up the street.
“How many times did this happen?” Ms Gunn asked.
“About 10 to 15 times,” the woman stated.
During cross-examination, Monaghan’s defence solicitor Stuart Murray probed the woman about her claims his client had been caught looking through her window on more than 20 occasions.
“The truth is that you exaggerated your position in court today?” he asked.
“No,” the woman replied.
“Do you think that perhaps you’re being overly sensitive about this individual?” Mr Murray asked.
“No,” the woman repeated.
Accused claimed he had ‘never seen woman in his life’
A friend of the woman also gave evidence in which she said she saw Monaghan watching her on two occasions while she was visiting her friend.
The woman, also 24, told the fiscal depute she saw Monaghan staring at her through a gap in his curtains.
Soon after she said she looked again and saw him standing in open view staring at her for “a few minutes”.
“It made me feel uneasy,” she said.
Giving evidence in his own defence, Monaghan described the accusations against him as “absolute nonsense”.
He also claimed he had “no recollection” of meeting his female neighbour, adding that he “did not remember ever seeing her in my life.”
However, Sheriff Lesley Johnston found Monaghan guilty of the charge, stating that she found his accusers to be “credible and reliable” and described his evidence as “vague and lacking in detail”.
The sheriff deferred sentence on Monaghan, of Ashvale Place, Aberdeen, until next month in order for a criminal justice social work report and a restriction of liberty order assessment to be carried out.
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