A 38-year-old Levin woman convicted of stalking another woman over a period of three years claimed in court she knew her victim fancied her because she had a "gay" walk. "The body-language books say that if a person looks at you longer than three seconds then they are attracted to you. And she used to stare longer than that at me," testified Sheree Maria Cooley. "She would walk up to me all happy, in a way that I found out of the ordinary kind of flirting...She had a gay kind of a walk and flicked her hair up." The Dominion Post reports that Cooley carried out a marathon campaign of letters, e-mails and text messages despite her victim, Ruth Bastet, telling her she was not interested. The harassment continued till February last year, despite restraining orders and police visits. Cooley, who has described herself as bisexual and "a heterosexual woman in love", will be sentenced within the next fortnight.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Saturday, 26th March 2005 - 12:00pm