A NARBERTH man who made six early morning phone calls to a woman despite knowing that the calls were unwanted, has appeared before magistrates charged with harassment.
Christopher O’Connell made the first call at around 5.15am on March 18 to the woman’s mobile phone.
“She didn’t recognise the number and so she didn’t answer it,” Crown Prosecutor Sian Vaughan told Haverfordwest magistrates earlier this week.
But at 5.34am, O’Connell rang her phone once again.
“This time she answered and heard the defendant say ‘This is Christopher O’Connell…I’ve got your number back’. She put the phone down but he called her back four more times.”
In a victim impact statement that was read out to the court, the woman said the calls made her fearful for her own safety.
“I’m scared he’ll get access to my house,” she said.
O’Connell, 38, of Coxhill, Narberth, pleaded guilty to the charge of harassment. He was represented in court by Mr Tom Lloyd.
“He accepts he shouldn’t have made those six calls, but each were made in a very short space of time. The intention wasn‘t to cause fear but to speak to her as he wanted to clear the air and didn’t want any awkwardness. No violence was intended, so it was a sheer error of judgement.
“He’s genuinely sorry for what he’s done.”
After considering the evidence, magistrates requested an adjournment to enable to probation service to prepare a pre-sentence report.
The matter was adjourned to May 3 when O’Connell will return to the magistrates court to be sentenced.
He was granted conditional bail, the conditions being that he doesn’t contact the victim either directly or indirectly. This includes via any electronic device.
