Wealthy New Yorker crowdfunded stalking appeal

A former New York art gallery boss crowdfunded an legal battle to overturn a stalking restraining order, a court heard.

Farah Damji, 53, asked for donations on Twitter to hire a top QC to appeal her sentence for stalking in November 2016.

The businesswoman, who ran an art gallery in Manhattan in the 1990s, denies two counts of breaching the restraining order on April 2018 and June 2018.

She penned a handwritten letter to a government body claiming the investigating officer from her stalking case had been harassing her despite being banned from mentioning his name.

Damji complained that PC Vincent Chan had ‘scared’ her elderly mother by contacting her without permission in a message sent to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

PC Chan is one of many names Damji is forbidden from mentioning under the terms of her restraining order.

But the 53-year-old launched an online campaign to ‘besmirch the character’ of the officer, jurors heard.

She posted ‘character assassinations’ of various people protected by the restraining order against her and made false claims that PC Chan had wrongfully accused her of fraud.

In the two-page missive to MAPPA officer Kim Dormer Damji said: ‘He (Chan) has caused me alarm and distress. He has phoned my mother though I expressly requested that all contact with her was only by representatives from probation.

‘My mother is 78 and very ill and quite fragile. Why was Chan given my mother’s number? He has scared her and told her that he should not offer me accommodation that I will be constantly disturbed by police.

‘He has told her probation service will offer me hostel accommodation. I’m not going to a hostel as I have an alternative address in Tottenham.

‘I don’t consent to any further information being shared with Chan for the following reasons. Chan is the subject of an investigation by Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

‘He also made a trumped up accusation of me defrauding my own company which I have not. I have something my ex-partner who has unlawfully sold a building out of my company with no one’s consent.

‘This constant interference with my prison sentence now with my imminent release is going to stop.

‘Please confirm he will be removed by the MAPPA panel failing which I will seek review of the panel.’

Damji appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court wearing leopard print heels and a floral top.

She claims she misunderstood the scope of the restraining order but prosecutor Richard Hearnden told jurors today (mon) the terms were ‘as clear as a pikestaff.’

Mr Hearnden said: ‘Just over three years ago [Damji] was convicted and sentenced for the offence of stalking.

‘You have to know that information because the case simply wouldn’t make sense without it. The court can make a restraining order in such cases.

‘A restraining order as its name indicates anticipates sensibly that an offender might still be trying to contact certain people or go to certain places.

‘It is designed to curtail a defendant’s desire to contact certain people. Restraining orders are useful for example in domestic violence cases.

‘Domestic violence happens in relationships such as between a man and a woman. Restraining orders are normally, not always but normally, made against the man.

‘[Restraining orders] are designed to curtail a defendant’s freedom to do what they want and contact who they want. But in this case the restraining order was breached we say by the defendant.

‘This case really touches on freedom of speech. This case [is] really about defamation of a person’s character. The prosecution says the free speech we all enjoy does not extend to besmirching the character of a person.

‘It does not extend to waging a vendetta against someone else and the right to free speech does not justify engaging in a campaign of harassment.

‘Damji was prevented from contacting a wide range of people. They’re all named in the restraining order. Further she was not to mention certain people in correspondence with others on social media or any published material unless there were certain exceptions.

‘Whilst a right of appeal exists the order has not been quashed and it stays in place.

‘It is a valid and lawful order.

‘The defendant deliberately breached it because frankly she was still pursuing some sort of vendetta, some sort of campaign.

‘She said this PC (Chan) was under investigation, that he lied under oath and that he was a bent cop. This is not only a serious allegation but a completely unfounded allegation, and worse still it was in flagrant breach of the restraining order.

‘This may never have come to light because Ms Dormer didn’t know anything about the restraining order.

‘She just passed it onto her manager for it to be dealt with. It may never have come to light if it weren’t for the fact that a Crowdfunder on Twitter appeared one day. The twitter account of the defendant had a tweet which linked to the Crowdfund.

‘The problem with the Crowdfund was that had been tweeted to the whole world was that it repeated unfounded allegations that were designed to besmirch the character of the people that the last case was about.

‘This Crowdfunder also linked to a letter in which those people were mentioned and it also linked to other documents which again were to do with a sort of character assassination of these people.

‘The tweet said please support my appeal on fresh ground and it was raising money to get a highly paid QC specialising in public law to deal with her case.

‘This restraining order is as clear as a pikestaff. It’s by no means legal gobbledegook.’

Damji, of no fixed address, denies two counts of breaching a restraining order.

The trial continues.
ends