A 36-year-old man in Nantou County was sentenced to three months in prison and fined for stalking a former colleague and using a drone to locate her residence.
The man, surnamed Chuang (莊), had made advances on the woman while they worked together, but the woman rejected his attempts, the Nantou District Court said in its ruling.
She quit her job last year, but Chuang tracked her and photographed her for months, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung Police Department
Chuang trailed her to her new workplace, and would wait outside her work and residence to give her gifts, which she did not accept, the court said.
Chuang acted against her wishes by following her and taking photographs of her, including when she went shopping, sought medical treatment and picked up her child, which he posted on Facebook, it said, adding that earlier this year, he flew a camera-enabled drone over her home.
The court granted the woman a restraining order, after which Chuang punctured the tires of her vehicle, the court said.
Due to the mental and physical toll of Chuang’s persistent stalking, she quit her job and moved away, it said, adding that she also experienced anxiety and stress, requiring professional counseling.
The court ruled that Chuang had contravened the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act (跟蹤騷擾防制法) and breached the restraining order.
In civil litigation, the judges ruled that Chuang had infringed on the woman’s right to freedom and health, fining him NT$200,000.
Since the government promulgated the act in June last year, prosecutors and judges have handled hundreds of such cases, many of which have involved eccentric behavior.
Men accounted for vast majority of people found guilty in such cases, with fewer than 10 percent of women, Taichung Police Department data showed.
In most cases, a man continued to pursue a woman who had rejected his advances, with the second main type of case involving former partners refusing to accept a breakup, the data showed.
The Taichung District Court last year handled a case in which a woman surnamed Lin (林) would wait for a colleague outside the hospital where they worked, behavior she continued for five years.
The male doctor had to wait for the act to be promulgated to file a complaint, with the courts finding her guilty and fining her NT$20,000.
In another case, a woman surnamed Chen (陳) in New Taipei City and a man she met online agreed to meet at a motel, but he reportedly left her there and cut off all social media links to her.
Chen later wrote an article alleging that he had humiliated her and sent it to officials at the school he worked at as an assistant professor.
The woman then made more than 20 telephone calls to his university research office and engaged in other types of harassment, judges said.
They fined her NT$100,000 and handed her a suspended two-year sentence.
Prosecutors said the most peculiar case involved a Taiwan Railways Administration conductor surnamed Su (蘇), whose actions to follow a female crew member delayed express trains.
Su was sentenced to 85 days in prison, which was commuted to a fine.
The TRA transferred him to a desk job.
In another case in Nantou County, a man surnamed Chen (陳), 32, was rejected by his former girlfriend and sent text messages threatening her life.
He later threw a homemade explosive at her and continued to harass her after he was released from preventive detention.
He was later handed a 17-month sentence after he attempted to attack her with a knife.
To be convicted under the new anti-stalking law, repeated stalking and harassment must be sexual or gender-related, and target a specific person against their will and sufficiently affecting their daily life.
Actions include trailing, or sending letters or online messages.
In Hsinchu, a high-school student surnamed Chang (張) was fined NT$20,000 for sending a fellow student four text messages asking her to engage in dirty talk, with one of the messages containing a link to a pornographic site.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS