Waiter is still harassing family, says woman

The Bulgarian waiter acquitted last week of harassing Mary Gilhooley and who was deported after the case because gardaí learned he had previously killed a woman he had stalked in Germany has continued to harass her family by telephone from Bulgaria.

Ms Gilhooley yesterday revealed Vencislav Venev (39) had telephoned her husband at his work twice yesterday morning. She said she feared he may return to Ireland and begin stalking her again.

"He's phoning my husband because he can't get at me," she told RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline programme. "But the next night I go into work I'm sure he will. There's nothing I can do about it."

She feared Venev would return to Ireland if Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. While gardaí had taken an exclusion order against him and circulated his details to police forces in other jurisdictions, she still feared he would try to return.

"I have the greatest faith in the gardaí and the immigration system. But these people can slip in. I just have to be vigilant and be on my guard, " she said.

After Venev's acquittal last Friday following an eight-day trial it emerged he had been convicted of manslaughter in Germany in February 1994. He was sentenced to 12 years for killing the woman.

The sentence was commuted and he was deported from Germany to Bulgaria in 1998. During his trial in Germany the court was told that Venev had stalked his victim.

The former waiter was accused in the Circuit Criminal Court of harassing Ms Gilhooley (48), of Cannonbrook Park, Lucan, Co Dublin. He claimed he had had an affair with Ms Gilhooley, a married woman.

During the trial the jury could not be told of Venev's conviction in Germany.

In 1999 Ms Gilhooley and her husband met Venev when he worked as a waiter in a restaurant in a Black Sea holiday resort. He befriended them and the couple helped him to come to Ireland. Ms Gilhooley helped Venev to secure a job and a work permit and let him stay in her house so he could save money on rent.

When she told him last year she could not help him any more he continued to call her and follow her. He turned up at her home and place of work. When gardaí warned him to stop contacting her, his behaviour did not change. She then began to fear for her safety and that of her family.

Yesterday Ms Gilhooley said she only learned of his past by accident. She had met his mother on the 1999 holiday and rang her last year to ask her if she knew why he was behaving as he was.

It was then that his mother revealed he had been in jail after being convicted of stabbing his girlfriend to death in 1993. She informed gardaí and the details were entered in evidence at a High Court bail hearing.

Ms Gilhooley said she felt she, and not Venev, was on trial last week. Everything she had done to help him was twisted and used against her and made to look "sordid". She insisted their relationship had never gone beyond friendship.