Eve opens up on RTÉ about her experience as stalking victim and need for change
A LOCAL woman is seeking changes in legislation specifically for the offence of stalking. Eve McDowell and Cork native Una Ring are both calling on Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to make the necessary changes to protect all victims of stalking.
Both women have opened up publicly about their own experiences of being stalked having appeared on RTÉ radio and television to highlight what they went through and why the legislation needs to specifically be changed to address stalking.
Eve retold her story on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland radio programme of when she noticed obsessive behaviour from her stalker while she was working in Galway where she was also a student at NUIG.
“I noticed it got really out of hand one day in work when I noticed him outside at 9.30am. Later on I went for my lunch and I could see him outside the restaurant I went to.
“I went back to Eyre Square and I could see him again. He wasn’t approaching me, he was looking from a distance. At this point I had noticed him hanging around a bit but wasn’t sure if it was a coincidence, so I notified some friends and then I had to go back to work after lunch. “At around 4pm a friend called into let me know she could see him outside the shops on a bench looking in.”
She went on to explain that the man had showed up in a pub she visited with friends after work, while also waiting outside another pub they quickly moved to.
Eve and a friend eventually confronted him when they spotted him later in the evening hiding behind a car. When asked about his behaviour, he simply “ran away laughing” according to Eve, who then spotted him again while they were walking home later on that day. Eve said she recognised her stalker, who she described as “a mutual friend of a mutual friend” from college.
She also said that at one stage he had shaved off his beard, eyebrows and hair after being described by a friend of Eve’s as being very recognisable. Some weeks later, things took a much darker turn when her stalker made his way into her accomodation holding a weapon.
“I had been at home for a week to get away from it all. I went into town with my then boyfriend to get food and when we came back into the estate I could see him at the bushes opposite my house hiding. “I rang the guards. They took a statement and I was awake all night feeling something was up. I got up at around 7.50am to go to the bathroom. My flatmate was asleep on the couch but that woke her up and she opened the balcony door to let some air in.
“She woke up again when she heard floorboards creaking and he was half way across the sitting room with a hammer in his hand.”
Her stalker was found by police within half an hour, still staying relatively close to the estate she lived in.
He has since been prosecuted and is serving seven years in jail on charges of harrassment and aggravated burglary. While there is relief that her stalker is in prison, Eve admits there are concerns about his eventual release as to how private her life will have to be and whether she will have to move her life elsewhere.
Eve and Una also feel more justice needs to be served to victims of stalking as it is not specifically in any legislation and is far more sinister than harrassment.
“It needs to be recognised as a crime. The word ‘stalking’ is not in the non-fatal offences to the person act. It is far more sinister than harrassment – it is a pattern of fixated, obsessive behaviour which is completely intrusive.
“Scotland have done it and the results have helped a lot of women and men and it would give gardaí the tools to intervene in the early stages to prevent anyone going through what we went through.”