Man who had 'obsession' with Cork girl, 16, left family feeling 'scared and unsafe'
Accused pleaded guilty to charges of assault causing harm to the householder’s partner and harassment of the teenager from May 2021 to March 2023. Picture: Larry Cummins
A 26-year-old man “developed an obsession of sorts” with a 16-year-old girl and he went on to harass her for almost two years and he assaulted the partner of the teenager’s mother.
“This harassment was scary, unwelcome and uninvited. It has affected all of [the teenager’s family] in a horrible way, because of things you have previously said and threats you have allegedly uttered," Judge James McCourt said at Cork Circuit Criminal Court
“The family felt very unsafe and scared in their own home in their own town. A sentence of three years is merited. Taking into account mitigating factors, I will reduce the three years.
“I am prepared to suspend the last 18 months on condition that you stay away from Bandon and that on completion of your sentence that you will leave Ireland within 72 hours and go to Poland or wherever and stay away from Ireland on your release for at least six years.”
Garda Seán O’Connor described the obsession Mickolaj Kurnatowski began to have with the teenager but that she did not reciprocate.
On March 3 this year, he turned up at the family’s home and told the teenager’s mother he wanted to speak with her daughter. She told him her daughter was at school and did not have time to speak to him.
Garda Seán O’Connor said: “He put his foot in the door, stopping her from closing it. He said he wanted [the teenager] to stop talking to him — that he hears her voice in his head every day. He said he was mentally ill.
“It is alleged he made some threats, that he said he would kill [the teenager] and would break the windows of the house. He said he was schizophrenic and had papers from a doctor in Poland and that the gardaí would be unable to do anything to him because of this.
“She asked him to leave on a number of occasions. He did so at the third time of asking. He did not make any attempt to enter the house. He left the scene.
“Ten minutes later, there was another call to the scene that there was a fight in progress outside the house. I observed a man on the ground being restrained by two other men. One of them had blood pouring down his face.
“The man on the ground was Mickolaj Kurnatowski.”
It was later alleged the accused had hit the householder’s partner in the head with a rock, causing lacerations to his head.
Prosecution barrister Brendan Kelly said the accused was cooperative and was living in difficult circumstances. At the time, he was living in an abandoned car in the Bandon area. The victim’s family expressed the hope the accused would stay out of their lives.
Defence barrister Ben Shorten said of the accused: “He is taking multi anti-psychotic injections for treatment. He was hearing voices in his head.”
The accused pleaded guilty to charges of assault causing harm to the householder’s partner and harassment of the teenager from May 2021 to March 2023, commencing when she was only 16.
