Schoolchildren’s banter led to harassment by mother

A mother has avoided a jail term after she admitted harassing a former family friend for two months over some “mild school banter” between the women’s young daughters.

In September 2015, Aisling McCann, aged 34, began making anonymous silent phonecalls to the victim from a blocked number. Over the next two months she harassed the victim by sending anonymous emails insulting her daughter and telling her to keep away from her children.

She would also order food online and have it delivered to the woman’s home and ordered taxis to pick her up at her home. McCann of Oaklands Park, Swords, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to nine charges of harassment on dates between September 11 and November 22, 2015.