It was a photo of a young woman, posing in a bathroom mirror, that was the final straw for Sarah*.

That was because the photo had been taken in her bathroom, and the obsessed woman who had been stalking her for almost eight years had not been invited inside.

At least not by Sarah.

Sarah, a teacher, had tried her best to ignore the woman, who previously attended the school where she taught, despite the hundreds of messages, calls and friend requests on social media and the fake accounts made in her name by the younger woman over the years.

She’d done everything to protect her children as well, including changing her routes to get home, installing security cameras, guarding her online presence and not letting anyone know where she lived.

Then, in 2023, she received a message from another former student notifying her that the woman had posted online that she’d been having an affair with Sarah’s husband, and a friend request from the woman soon followed.

So, finally, Sarah took the bait.

“I can’t even describe what I went into, it was a weird state of shock,” she told NZME.

Sarah says that the woman disclosed that she’d been having an affair with her husband and provided screenshots of messages between them as proof.

Part of that proof was a selfie of the woman taken in a mirror at Sarah’s home.

“This woman, whom I had a gut instinct, deep fear of from the time she started at my school, when she sent that photo … I was worried about my kids, I worried about what she’d seen, worried about how thick I’d been to have not seen any of it,” she said.

“It is the worst ever nightmare I could have ever imagined.”

Sarah said she didn’t sleep for days after her stalker described in detail the affair, the inside of Sarah’s home and what her children looked like.

While there was a break between 2018 and 2023 in the overt harassment, Sarah said weird things continued to happen. She’d get a notification from Instagram saying that someone with the username “he’s-cheating-on-you” had added her, but when she went to check the notification, the account had disappeared.

One of many friend requests on social media that Sarah received over the years. Photo / Supplied

She believes that the woman would create the profiles and then immediately delete them, prompting a notification but no further digital footprint.

“I actually felt like I was going mental,” she said.

“All I’ve ever wanted was for her to just stop. I just don’t understand the obsession.

“All I’ve wanted to do is just live my life.”

Following the discovery of the affair, Sarah left her husband and unsuccessfully applied for a restraining order against the woman. Instead, the woman signed an undertaking not to contact Sarah or her children.

However, by 2024, the woman had reignited a campaign of criminal harassment against Sarah, leading police to charge her with such offending.

This week, at the Palmerston North District Court, the woman was sentenced on a single charge of criminal harassment to six months community detention and 18 months intensive supervision. The sentence included that the woman would need permission to own a device capable of connecting to the internet.

Both she and Sarah were granted permanent name suppression.

Judge Lance Rowe said the woman’s offending had been the culmination of years of harassment, including making fake social media accounts in the victim’s name, and her children’s.

“You’ve had an infatuation and obsession with the victim since attending her school as a child, and that obsession has caused you to stalk and track your victim to the point it had caused her substantial and enduring harm in the form of anxiety, distrust, distress, financial loss and I’m only scratching the surface,” Judge Rowe said at the hearing.

“Your conduct has been relentless and determined.

“She simply wants it to stop. She wants you to leave her alone.”

‘We felt unsafe in our own home’

According to a victim impact statement read by Sarah at the hearing, the pair’s history dates back to when Sarah was a teacher at a school the woman attended from the age of 11.

“Her obsession with me and my life was obvious very early on in our interactions …” Sarah told the court, adding that after notifying the school, the woman was closely monitored.

Sarah told the court that in 2017, the woman began imitating Sarah on social media for the first time, making her feel “extremely vulnerable, anxious and fearful”

It prompted her and her then-husband to make a police complaint, and sparked “years of what can only be described as a nightmare”.

By 2018, Sarah said she attended a family group conference with her stalker, where the woman was warned not to contact the teacher or her family again.

And for five years, Sarah thought she was safe, and that the woman had moved on and left her alone, she told the court.

Until she found out her husband had been sleeping with her.

“I still do not understand how this happened, given their 20-year age difference, and especially after she was told not to contact my family in 2018,” Sarah said.

“Their years-long affair quite literally almost destroyed my life.

“To say that this caused irreparable damage to my emotional state is an understatement. The messages and photos she sent me were traumatic. Not only did [the woman’s] confessions signal the end of my marriage, it also ended the family and life I had created for my children. We felt unsafe in our own home.”

Sarah received repeated calls from an unknown number. Photo / Supplied

Sarah told the court she had to install security cameras, disengage from social media, and move house to get away from the constant harassment.

She also attempted to get a restraining order through the civil jurisdiction in 2023, but was unsuccessful. That was when the woman instead signed the undertaking not to contact her or her family again.

The undertaking also meant the woman could not make social media accounts in the name of the victim or her children.

And for around 18 months, there was peace.

Then, according to a police summary of facts released to NZME, in October 2024, that tentative truce was broken when the woman sent Sarah a friend request on Instagram and a message saying “stop making fake accounts and trying to follow me”.

Sarah didn’t respond, but found a fake Instagram account under her real name.

Near the end of December, Sarah received another request from another account, this time saying, “I think we need to have a civil conversation. To clear some things up. Just let me say what I need to, and I promise from here on I’ll stop. Okay?”

Five days later, the woman set up a Snapchat account with Sarah’s ex-husband’s initials.

Sarah’s children were on holiday with him at the time, so she accepted the friend request, thinking it was him. However, the woman began messaging Sarah, asking for a truce and saying she never meant to hurt her.

Sarah then blocked the account.

In January, she continued to receive multiple requests on social media from the woman and her friends, so she disabled all accounts to stop the contact.

But by the end of February, she went back on social media and immediately began receiving friend requests from accounts such as “are_you_over_that_guy_yet” and “bitch_i_know_you_miss_me”.

Multiple accounts were made on Instagram with usernames designed to send a message to Sarah. Photo / Supplied

Around that time, Sarah was in a new relationship but when she and her new partner separated, the woman somehow found out.

She began sending Sarah friend requests from accounts with the usernames “You_just-Got_dumped” and “so.did.he.cheat.then”.

Sarah accepted the last of these to prove it was the defendant behind the accounts.

Over the next six weeks, the woman continued to create accounts with usernames like “stop.making.me.wait”.

Then, in June last year, Sarah received a package containing chocolates and fake roses at her new home address. While it was in Sarah’s name, the woman had left her mobile number on the packing slip.

Sarah texted the number and asked who it was from.

Over the next two days, the woman then called Sarah 45 times and left multiple voice messages.

Sarah told the court that the woman had “relentlessly stalked” her on social media, pretended to be her ex-husband to bait her into talking to her, and sent packages to her home in an attempt to force her to engage.

“This has destroyed my trust in people,” she said.

“At times, I have felt so desperate for her to stop that I have replied to her barrage of messages and requests – only to find no closure or ability to end [the woman’s] obsession with me and my life.

“Do you know what it feels like to question everything? To have to delete social media, change your routines, your home, install security, navigate, keeping your children safe whilst still maintaining the biggest secret as to whom they need to be kept safe from.”

Sarah was bombarded with messages on Instagram. Photo / Supplied

Sarah told the court that the woman’s stalking was not a single moment, but rather a deliberate and calculated pattern done specifically to terrorise her.

“It has left me unable to sleep a full night. It has broken my trust in people and made me question my own reality.

“I am not just seeking justice – I am begging for protection for myself and my children, for closure and for peace – forever."

Fear and constant harassment

Parallel to the criminal charge against the woman was a second restraining order application made by Sarah in October last year.

The grounds for the restraining order were the same facts that covered the criminal charge, and the woman’s many attempts to contact Sarah from the end of 2024.

Sarah told NZME she sought legal advice and was told that a restraining order would be the best way to protect herself and her children.

Last year, Judge Stephanie Edwards considered the application for the order and found that there was “no question” the woman had harassed Sarah between October 2024 and July 2025.

“This harassment has been by way of repeated phone calls, follow requests and messages through various social media platforms, as well as the package sent on 9 June,” Judge Edwards determined.

The judge said there was a long background to the offending, and the woman’s behaviour had clearly caused distress, and that Sarah’s application was a last resort.

“She states that she did not want to go down the path of court proceedings again as it causes additional stress on top of what she is experiencing from [the woman’s] harassment, but she lives in fear of the constant harassment and has concerns for the safety and wellbeing of her children.”

While Judge Edwards said she was not prepared to make a permanent restraining order, she did grant one for five years, which prevents the woman from coming within 100m of Sarah, contacting her or her children and prevents her from making social media accounts impersonating her.

At the woman’s sentencing this week, Judge Rowe said that he didn’t have the power to make the restraining order permanent like Sarah wanted.

However, he did warn the woman that if she were to find herself before the court again for harassing the same victim, she could lose name suppression.

Judge Rowe also ordered that the woman undertake counselling.

Sarah told NZME after the sentencing that as a victim, it felt like a small win.

“It’s a relief that I wasn’t going crazy,” she said.

“I hope she gets the help she desperately needs ... but more than anything, I hope that I’ll finally get left alone.”

*Sarah is not the victim’s real name.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.