A refugee subjected a 16-year-old girl to nearly a month of verbal abuse and intimidation, Southend magistrates were told.

Albanian Bajrami Myzafer, of Macdonald Avenue, Westcliff, followed the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in his car and waited for her outside her school and her home.

Peter Linstead, prosecuting, said the girl, who is now 17, found Myzafer's actions intimidating. Myzafer, 25, and the girl were in a relationship from September 1998 to February 1999, but after it finished Myzafer continued to pursue his former girlfriend.

He pestered her and her parents with abusive telephone calls and on one occasion threatened to kill the girl.

One evening he came round to her home and became involved in a fight with the girl's father. Police were called to the scene and Myzafer was arrested.

He denied the charge of harassment when interviewed by the police and claimed he only wanted the girl to return a jacket.

However, speaking through an interpreter, he later pleaded guilty in court. Lucy Murray, defending, said: "Myzafer was a man in love and maybe they do things differently in his country.

"He is an asylum seeker and there is a history of unpleasantness in his country."

Myzafer also pleaded guilty to two offences of driving without a valid UK licence on May 24, and June 25.

He was fined £100 for the driving offences and £69 costs. The harassment case has been adjourned until January 31, while a pre-sentence report is prepared.

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