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<\/a><\/p>\nIt was claimed that on one occasion, a woman who works at the Greater Village Regeneration Trust had to lock herself in the bathroom of their premises.<\/p>\n
Leists, of Claremont Street in Belfast, was refused bail and remanded in custody.<\/p>\n
He is forbidden from harassing Ms Kelly along with other named members of the DUP, Sinn F\u00e9in and Alliance under a five-year restraining order imposed last November. <\/p>\n
Belfast Magistrates\u2019 Court heard he allegedly breached the prohibition by posting on Facebook over a period between July 18 and August 12.<\/p>\n
Ms Kelly, who was appointed Lord Mayor in June, told police the posts were about her and that she had been tagged in them. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe believed (they) were directed at her to cause her fear, pester and harass her on a daily basis,\u201d an investigating detective said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also posted a video outside her place of work at City Hall. She stated that she lives in fear of the defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leists was said to have ranted incoherently during police interviews, where he accepted having tagged Ms Kelly in the posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe stated it was freedom of speech, the information needed to be put out there\u2026and she needed to know this information,\u201d the detective added.<\/p>\n
Judge Noel Dunlop also heard Leists had repeatedly attended the Greater Village Regeneration Trust\u2019s offices on Donegall Road over the last month.<\/p>\n
On one occasion he paced around the premises, speaking about his previous dealings with politicians and the restraining order. <\/p>\n
Referring to the latest incident on August 12, the detective said: \u201cSuch was the state of fear of the injured party that she refused to let him in, locked herself in a bathroom and phoned the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bail was opposed amid claims the accused is determined to contact politicians and cannot be contained.<\/p>\n
Leists refused to leave the courthouse cells to enter the dock during the hearing.<\/p>\n
His solicitor, Paul Dougan, acknowledged wider issues of abuse being directed at elected representatives across the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a fine line between what constitutes harassment and disagreement with matters that politicians may talk about,\u201d he submitted.<\/p>\n
Mr Dougan argued that the alleged breach of the restraining order was limited to tagging the Lord Mayor in online posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been no direct confrontation with that complainant,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
Citing potential issues around freedom of expression, Mr Dougan added that Leists has also been selected to marshal at basketball championships in his native Latvia later this month.<\/p>\n
Bail was denied, however, based on the risk he could commit further offences.<\/p>\n
Remanding him in custody and directing a psychiatric assessment, Judge Dunlop held: \u201cI can\u2019t be satisfied that he can be restrained at all.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man allegedly breached a restraining order by posting on Facebook about Belfast\u2019s Lord Mayor, a court has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[663,9,10,2915,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-2415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-dup","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}