Jan Krause
Jan Krause, a violent male who identifies as a trans woman, was first convicted of harassment at Chester magistrates’ court in 2010, after waging a six year “campaign of harassment” between 2004 and 2009 aimed at driving a female neighbour – a nurse – and her three children from their home.
Krause was handed a 12-week sentence suspended for 18 months, told to do 120 hours of community service, given an 18-week curfew and a four-year restraining order with eight conditions.
Krause’s sentence was suspended after the defence team told the judge “There is some doubt over whether she would go to a female or a male establishment. If she were to go to a male prison, who knows what would happen to her, it hardly takes any thinking about to see how much danger she would be in.” Notwithstanding the very clear evidence of the distress caused over a number of years and Krause’s refusal to accept any wrongdoing, the judge had agreed the defendant would be a “particularly vulnerable person in a prison environment”.
Krause recorded the neighbouring family’s comings and goings, took pictures and kept a diary containing over 600 entries detailing their movements. Krause also deliberately smashed into a family member’s car and would often stand outside their home – on one occasion whilst wearing a balaclava, dressed in all in black. On other occasions, Krause called armed police who raided the neighbours’ house at 3am, and erected a roof-mounted device which emitted a high-pitched whine in the direction of their home for nearly a year before authorities ordered it taken down.
Following the conviction in the magistrates’ court, Krause, 47, was convicted of four further counts of almost immediately breaching the restraining order after conducting observations of the neighbouring family, shining a torch into the faces of visitors to their property and approaching a gas man who was testing their central heating system. The jury at Chester Crown Court in 2011 took less than 20 minutes to deliver their verdict. Again, Krause escaped a prison sentence and was sentenced to 250 hours’ community service and a ten year restraining order.
Krause also denied sitting in a garden chair in the garage to watch the neighbour’s family, saying it was to look after a dog and take a break from domestic tension saying, “I needed to get away from her because my mum was undermining my attempts to function as a female in society.”
After the guilty verdict, Chief Supt Craig Guildford said “Jan Krause has wreaked misery on the day to day lives of her victims and shown a flagrant disregard for the law and the sentence that was imposed on her.” He added, “Krause has displayed an overwhelming sense of arrogance throughout the police investigation and the subsequent trials, and in my opinion it is her obsessive and arrogant nature that has fuelled her criminal conduct throughout.”
During the trial the victim said: ”I felt totally intimidated in my own home and my whole life had been turned upside down. It was getting me really down and depressed and after nine months of it, I put my house on the market. I couldn’t stand the thought of being there any longer and being watched.”
In 2012, Krause tried to overturn the verdict in the appeal court by claiming to be a victim of mistaken identity, trying to shift some of the blame onto the neighbours and claiming a community service lawnmower was too heavy to push, but only succeeded in reducing the community sentence to 157 hours. The neighbours were reported to have moved away.
Photo via The Telegraph
Media reports
Northwich Guardian http://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/news/9245657.Hartford_woman_had__flagrant_disregard__for_law/ archive
The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7926153/Transsexual-escapes-jail-sentence-for-spying-campaign.html
Northwich Guardian http://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/news/8311997._Vulnerable__transsexual_woman_escapes_prison_sentence/ archive