Bergens Tidende 24th May 1995

13 Years of Harassment.

A Bergen lady, Heidi Schøne (pictured) has been harassed and threatened with her life over a period of thirteen years by a man who she accidentally met when she was an au pair in England. Her secret addresses haven't helped against the English lawyer, whose attitude is similar to one suffering from erotic paranoia.
On page 2 the headline is Defenceless against 13 years of pursuit.
OSLO:-
For more than thirteen years the Bergen lady Heidi Schøne (31) has been threatened with her life and harassed because she didn't want to be the wife of a Muslim man who lives in England. Family, friends and colleagues often received written reports about Heidi's life. The Muslim lawyer has also used a private detective to trace her. People will find it hard to imagine the pressure Heidi and her immediate family have been under since the early 1980s.
A few weeks ago, a Bergen freelance photographer received a letter from Watford in England, although the letter did not have any sender's name and address. The title of the letter was 'Report on Heidi Schøne' which was defamatory and humiliating. The freelance photographer contacted Bergens Tidende who in turn contacted Heidi Schøne and her husband who lived outside Drammen and they told her about the letter.
Heidi answered the phone crying "Where shall this end? How many people will have got this letter?"
Bag with letters
Yesterday, Bergens Tidende met Heidi Schøne and her husband Runar in Oslo. Under her arm she carried a bag with letters from the Muslim man; all the letters were very rude and insulting. The last 13 years have been very traumatic. Secret addresses haven't helped. All of this started 14 years ago when Heidi Schøne was an au pair in England. On a boat trip from France to England with a girlfriend, she met a friendly Muslim man. He was very nice and he told her about his Muslim beliefs and that if he got married the girl must be Muslim as well. "I felt quite safe", she said. "In England we met him several times just as good friends. After nine months I moved back to Bergen".
Ugly and Stupid
Then he changed. The Muslim man wanted Heidi to be his wife. "He visited me several times in Bergen without being invited. He said he wished he could marry me; and said I was ugly and stupid and that he would be the only one who would love me when I was 50 years old. Arguments between us followed. Since then he has made threats on my life and has harassed me. He has also threatened to kill my family", said Heidi. In 1990 the 35 year old Muslim man was arrested in Bergen but the police didn't take the matter any further. The harassments carried on. The Muslim man didn't speak Norwegian but the aforementioned report is written in Norwegian and sent from Watford where he is living. In 1990 the police found material which indicated that the Muslim man had liaised with a Norwegian man with the purpose of following Heidi Schøne and finding her secret address, one of several secret addresses which followed for Heidi and she lost out every time.
Sent to the neighbours
Now she has given up with secret addresses. Her new neighbours have got the reports explaining to them what her old life was like as the Muslim man saw it. "How can one make sense of it? We haven't been lovers or had feelings for each other. He fantasises about it", the Bergen woman said painfully.
For six years she has lived outside Drammen. Six months ago she got married to Runar Schøne. Then the Muslim chap worked even harder on the matter. Numerous 'reports' were sent to Bergen and Drammen recently.
Her husband also got a letter sent personally to him-
"The Muslim man sent the report about Heidi to me as if I had requested it myself. The report was totally false. He did all he could to blacken Heidi's name", said Runar Schøne. He is sick and tired of the Muslim man.
Not afraid
The fear of the Muslim man has receded as the years have gone by. Heidi is not afraid anymore. The fear has changed to frustration and anger. Family, friends, colleagues and neighbours feel overwhelmed by these reports.
"Just a few years ago, I was very frightened and kept hiding under the bed", said Heidi.
"He has no limits. When he knocks on the door and finds no-one in, he writes obscene words on the door", she adds. The words Heidi refers to are unprintable. She knows that it will take a long time before the terror will stop. With her husband she has hired a lawyer called Tomm Skaug in Oslo and she has also reported the Muslim man to the police.
Heidi Schøne has been terrorised for several years by an insane man who she had earlier been friendly with but with whom there was no serious relationship. This situation is very difficult for her.
"I have seen the letters and I will follow the case. But it will be difficult so long as he is living in England and not in Norway", said the lawyer Tomm Skaug to Bergens Tidende.

EROTIC PARANOIA
A person who acts like this Muslim man against Heidi Schøne is not a new phenomenon in the view of the psychiatrist Kjell Noreik, a member of the medico legal group of psychiatrists. These people don't like to take no for an answer. The diagnosis is called erotic paranoia. One psychiatrist, Nils Rettersdøl has been writing much about Muslim behavioural patterns. Kjell Noreik doesn't place this diagnosis on the Muslim man but says that erotic paranoia is erotic delusions. He says that a person with this condition builds up a fantasy in relation to the other individual even though the former is rejected. Now this is a problem but not too serious a one. But it is very painful for the victims of this behaviour. This behaviour can carry on for years and doesn't stop even if the perpetrator is admonished. Some will also become violent.
Story: Haakon B. Schrøder
Photo: Havard Bjelland