Couple poured pancake mix over dentist’s car and sent her ‘vulgar’ Valentine card

Michael De Souza, (36), and Emma Maun, (28), a former couple who share an address at Sheehan’s Flats, Askeaton, Co Limerick, face a maximum ten years in prison.

Outlining a summary of the facts before a sentencing hearing at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court last Monday, prosecution counsel, John O’Sullivan BL, said the dentist had performed routine dental work on Maun and De Sousa in 2020 and 2021.

The dentist, who cannot be named by court order, later referred Maun to a maxillofacial clinic because she required more complex treatment.

Mr O’Sullivan said Maun was “unhappy” about having to go to another clinic and she started sending the dentist private messages via her personal social media account which was “highly unusual” and the dentist said made her feel “uneasy”.

The dentist also received “unnerving” private messages on Instagram from an anonymous user, including “a rant” about her personal life.

The court heard Maun and De Sousa conducted “a campaign of months of intimidation and harassment” which included them frequently loitering outside the dentist’s workplace and “staring at her”.

“The victim found this alarming,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

De Sousa admitted sending the dentist an “extremely vulgar” card on Valentine Day 2022, which “left her fearful and disgusted, and it accentuated her anxiety”.

Matters escalated and Maun followed the dentist by car from her workplace on her route home one evening in March 2002.

In another worrying episode, Maun drove De Sousa to the dentist’s home at 4.30am where De Sousa smeared “creamy liquid” over the dentist’s car.

“It turned out to be pancake mix, and a wing mirror on the car was damaged.”

The dentist told gardaí she was “afraid” and she had “no peace of mind because of the stalking of Michael De Sousa and Emma Maun”.

She told gardaí there was “no rationale” behind what and De Sousa were doing, and that it appeared they both had “a bizarre fixation with me and I don’t know why”.

After the dentist made a formal complaint to gardai, De Sousa visited two garda stations and made completely false statements of sexual impropriety against the dentist.

Maun told gardaí that she made a complaint about the dentist to the Irish Dental Association, but gardaí discovered this was not true.

Gardaí compiled 54 individual CCTV video clips that placed Maun and De Sousa outside the dentist’s workplace as well as in the vicinity of the dentist’s home.

While carrying out a legal search of the defendant’s home, gardaí found a mobile phone belonging to De Sousa containing search and location coordinates for the dentist’s home.

They also found evidence relevant to social media exchanges between Maun and the dentist which supported the State’s case.

De Sousa pleaded guilty to making false statements about the dentist and with causing criminal damage to her car, in Marc 2022.

The sentencing hearing heard that De Sousa and Maun each contested a single charge of harassment, which they were convicted of by a jury of ten following a four-week trial last month.

Maun was “directly involved” in harassing the dentist, and, like De Sousa, “she also felt entitled to do these things”, said Mr O’Sullivan.

However, the prosecution barrister said Maun could not be held accountable for the false statements by De Sousa nor for the vulgar card he had sent to the dentist.

Through their barristers, Maun and De Sousa issued apologies to the dentist but they both said did not accept the jury’s verdict.

Defence barristers Liam Carroll BL, acting for De Sousa; and Amy Nix BL, acting for Maun, told the court that the defendants had been abused by relatives when they were children, that Maun found it hard to fit in, and De Sousa, who has two other children from another relationship with a woman had struggled with his sexuality and was now identifying as a gay man.

Maun wrote a letter begging the sentencing Judge, Dermot Sheehan, not to jail her, saying she needed to be with her daughter (5) who has health difficulties.

The dentist broke down in court describing in a victim impact statement how she “feared for my safety” during the campaign of harassment.

She and her colleagues would “peer out” of the windows of the dental practice “looking for safe passage”.

“I would watch cars, check registration plates (in the vicinity of the dental practice), it became disruptive and exhaustive.”

Apart from going to work, she said she “did not feel safe going outside”.

“I did not invite this vile behaviour into my life, I did not deserve this – nobody does.”

“I worry what they (Maun and De Sousa) might do next”.

She said the card De Sousa sent her “makes my skin crawl” and seeing the defendants laughing using their trial “was sickening”.

She thanked Garda Patrick O’Sulllivan and Detective Garda Pat Whelan “for their considered attention and their assurances that my initial concerns were not trivial”.

“I put my trust in the gardaí and the court system, and I feel justice has been served, I feel I can now move on.”

De Sousa and Maun will be sentenced on July 26th.