Home detention for stalking

A DUNEDIN man who stalked his exgirlfriend and urinated on her new lover’s car has been sentenced to home detention.

Scott Gareth Fuller (38) had been in an onoff relationship with a woman for a year, but on June 19 it was definitively off.

She went to the defendant’s home to find him drunk and he interrogated her about a car that had repeatedly been parked outside her house. Believing Fuller had been stalking her, she ended the relationship.

What followed resulted in the man being brought before the Dunedin District Court yesterday, after pleading guilty to harassment, unlawful interference with a vehicle and resisting police.

Fuller repeatedly messaged his exgirlfriend, ‘‘expressing his love

. . . and that he couldn’t live without her’’.

She blocked him and all his social media accounts.

But Fuller did not get the message.

On the morning of June 20, he turned up at the woman’s house unannounced, banged on the door and demanded she change her mind.

When she threatened to call the police, Fuller left.

Less than a fortnight later, though, after consuming alcohol, he was back.

Fuller went to the car port at the back of the property and wrote an expletive in the dust on the window of his expartner’s car.

He then moved on to her new boyfriend’s Mazda parked nearby. Fuller removed valve caps from the two rear tyres and drained the air until they were flat, then he covered the roof with sawdust and wood chips.

His final act of retribution was to urinate on the back of the vehicle.

Fuller knocked forcefully on doors and windows of the house before he left and threw various items at the property.

Police found him on the front steps and the defendant claimed he was in the area because he was checking for mail at a place close by where he used to live.

Officers tried to manoeuvre Fuller into the back of the patrol car but he twisted his body to make it difficult and kicked out.

Defence counsel John Westgate stressed his client had been in custody awaiting sentencing for three and ahalf months.

That, Judge David Saunders said, was the punitive aspect of the sentence mostly complete.

He imposed two months’ home detention and offered Fuller some advice for future romantic pursuits.

‘‘Before you enter into further relationships, you think long and hard about your background and what you need to do to make yourself safe in future,’’ the judge said.

The victim had since left the country, the court heard.