No laughing matter
A woman is accused of making a ‘‘guttural roar’’ of laughter at her neighbour in breach of a court-ordered restraining order that had been issued just hours earlier.
Napier woman Mary O’Neill is accused of the breach on the afternoon of February 19, after she and her neighbour Peter Malcouronne left the Hastings District Court following a two-day hearing in which both were issued restraining orders following months of hostility.
The orders barred either from harassing or contacting each other, filming, making disturbing noise or posting material about each other on social media. O’Neill appeared in Napier District
Court yesterday on trial for four breaches of the order against her.
O’Neill denies she breached the order on any occasion. The first alleged breach involved O’Neill walking near Malcouronne’s partner, Nicky Spicer, and making what Malcouronne said was a loud laughing noise.
‘‘It’s hard to describe. It was a quite guttural roar or whoop, more than a ha ha. More like a wahaha [spoken loudly]. It was very unmistakable,’’ he said.
O’Neill’s lawyer, Philip Ross, said she could have burst into spontaneous laughter for any number of reasons.
Another alleged breach occurred on February 26, and involved O’Neill beeping her horn at the family as they were getting out of their car.
Malcouronne said she slowed down, beeped her horn for an extended period and stared and grinned at the couple’s two young children.
Ross said O’Neill was driving an electric car and was conscious of ensuring people knew she was there. She may also have been beeping her horn in order to scare birds off the road, he said. Another breach involved O’Neill posting a news article about the court case on her Facebook page, despite the restraining order barring her from making posts on social media about the case.
O’Neill said she had permission from someone at the court to make the post, and she made it because there were so many journalists wanting to speak to her after the court case that she had trouble getting into her house. The remaining charge occurred on February 23 and involved O’Neill allegedly using her cellphone to film Spicer and the children while they were getting in their car.
Spicer described the way O’Neill was holding the cellphone as if filming her and tracking her movements.
Another neighbour gave evidence that she saw O’Neill holding her phone with her arm extended and pointed at Spicer. Ross said it was widely acknowledged that cellphone reception was patchy in the area.