RTÉ First Dates star Daphney Sanasie bombarded celebrity chef Dylan McGrath with nuisance phone calls and disturbing messages including texts about "demons and souls" because she thought it was funny.
The 26-year-old model and student from South Africa, who has an address at Jamestown Road, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty on Friday to harassing Mr McGrath (39) from September 9th until November 21st, 2015.
Dublin District Court heard she kept pestering the Belfast-born MasterChef judge after they had gone on two dates in early 2015.
Judge Michael Walsh adjourned the case to consider what penalty he will impose on Sanasie who has been remanded on bail to a date next month.
At an earlier stage it had been indicated she would be contesting the charge but just before the trial was about to begin the court heard that a guilty plea was being entered.
The charge is contrary to section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
Mutual friend
Séamus Clarke, prosecuting, told the court the harassment was principally via phone calls, normal text messages and messages via WhatsApp.
Garda Colm Kelly agreed with Mr Clarke that Mr McGrath made a formal complaint on November 20th, 2015. Mr McGrath told Garda Kelly that he had been introduced to her by a mutual friend in December 2014. On February 7th, 2015 they met for the first time and their second date was a week later, on Valentine’s Day.
The court heard that from then on he had no personal contact with her but there was contact by texting, WhatsApp messages and phone calls. After that, the contact was mostly from her but intermittently contact came from him.
Garda Kelly agreed Mr McGrath had become “concerned at the tenor” of some of the messages, particularly in March 2015 when he told her to stop texting him. The court was furnished with print-outs of the messages.
Over one weekend in mid-November 2015, Mr McGrath received 20 SMS messages and 75 via WhatsApp from Sanasie.
Garda Kelly confirmed the defendant was arrested on December 1st and a number of phones were seized at her home. When interviewed she admitted she used them to contact Mr McGrath and that he had replied with requests for her to stop but she did not think that they were serious.
Undue stress
Garda Kelly said Sanasie, who has no previous criminal convictions, said she did it “because she wanted to annoy him and thought it was funny”. All the unwanted messages and calls were done when she was under the influence of alcohol, Judge Walsh heard.
Following the arrest she stopped contacting him, Garda Kelly said.
Mr Clarke said Mr McGrath, who sat in the public gallery, did not want to give a victim impact statement. Garda Kelly said it caused the chef a lot of undue stress.
Pleading for leniency, Gareth Robinson, for Sanasie, said his client came to Ireland two years ago as a student and in that time she got modelling and TV work.
Before leaving South Africa both her parents died and it was her intention to return there after the case has ended.
Judge Walsh said he had been furnished with the copies of the messages and he would need to review them in detail before finalising the case. He adjourned sentencing until February 17th next.