Family’s ‘stalker’ got names of boys in tattoo
A JUDGE has ordered a woman to stay away from a mother and her young sons after she “took a liking” to the boys and followed them around, eventually getting their names tattooed on her arm.
French woman Daniele Fromant (53) even found out the name of the victim’s stillborn daughter and had that put on the tattoo, telling a court she “could have loved” the girl.
Fromant sent the children unwanted birthday cards and postcards when she was on holiday, and turned up at one boy’s school sports day, leaving him “white as a ghost”.
After Fromant arrived uninvited at the family’s home, one child said: “Mammy, I thought we were safe here.”
Fromant had no connection to the family. She said she wanted only to make friends and felt “attached” to the boys.
Judge Deirdre Gearty gave her a two-month suspended sentence and ordered her to stay away from the victim for five years.
Fromant, with an address at Kevin Barry flats in Dublin’s north inner city, had pleaded not guilty to harassing the children’s mother on dates between 2014 and 2017.
The mother told Dublin District Court it started when her sons were five and 11 and Fromant began sending them birthday cards and postcards.
She said Fromant followed her and her children and would wave in the car window when she was bringing them to school.
It developed and “every day, she would be there, morning, noon and night”.
Her nephew’s girlfriend rang her to say the accused had a tattoo with her two sons’ names, as well as the name of her stillborn daughter.
“It was distressing,” the mother said. “I don’t know how she knew about [my daughter].”
She felt “sick” and decided to go to the gardaí.
One Saturday morning, Fromant turned up at their door while her husband and children were at home. They lived several kilometres from the accused and their house was “not easily found”.
The mother agreed with Fromant’s counsel that she was never aggressive and the cards were not menacing.
“We are living in fear that something will happen,” the children’s father said, adding that he had told Fromant to stay away from the children at least 10 times.
Fromant said in evidence she did not harass anyone and only “wanted to make friends with them”.