Carlos Gois harassed his victim for several months as a way of ‘testing out’ the woman to see if she would be the mother of his children, the Magistrate’s Court heard.
And even after being charged with harassment and appearing in court earlier this year, the 30-year-old continued to cause ‘a great deal of harm and distress’ to the woman by sending her messages through his friends’ Facebook accounts.
He only stopped after being re-arrested and held in custody.
Magistrate Bridget Shaw this week gave Gois a ten-year restraining order – an unusually long order rarely handed down by a judge – in addition to binding him over to leave Jersey for three years, saying that he potentially posed a danger to other women.
During the hearing the court heard how the defendant moved to the Island in September and a short time later joined a local cleaning business where he met the woman.
It was then that Portuguese national Gois began to harass his victim, sending her a persistent stream of unwanted messages on a daily basis despite a relationship never existing.
Legal adviser Lawrence O’Donnell, prosecuting, said it was ‘an entirely fictitious fantasy developed by the defendant over a period of months’ which ‘involved him sending her 2,000 texts’ as well as Facebook messages.
Mr O’Donnell added that there was no reason for Gois, who pleaded guilty to one charge of harassment, to stay in Jersey as he had ‘no ties and no family here’.
Advocate Paul Nicholls, defending, said that his client admitted that he had ‘gone too far’ and wanted to publicly apologise to the woman for the ‘considerable distress’ he caused her.
‘It’s very much his intent to leave the Island as there’s nothing here for him,’ the advocate said.
‘He no longer has a job and a large extent of his acquaintances no longer wish to have contact with him after what has happened.’
Mrs Shaw said that the comments he made about ‘testing out’ the woman were ‘sadistic’ and that she was concerned for other women that he might come into contact with in the future.
‘You have come to Jersey and within a short space of time you formed this attachment, a fantasy relationship in your own mind,’ she said.
‘I think you pose a risk to the woman involved in this case and she deserves protection. What makes the matter worse is that you kept on contacting her on so many occasions when she very clearly did not want it.’
Mrs Shaw added: ‘The woman has been extremely distressed by this experience and you should not put anyone through that in the future.’
