A Palma bar owner has been sanctioned over a years-long campaign of harassment against a rival bar that saw him make false accusations against them 42 times.
At one point he told them – a male and a female – that his only purpose in life was to ‘f*** them.’
He has been ordered to pay a €1,000 fine and compensation to his victims of €4,500 after the judge threw out his appeal and claim that it was ‘his word against theirs’.
The judge ruled that it was proven that the bar owner’s malicious campaign began in 2015 when the victims opened a bar in front of their future tormentor on a street in the Mallorcan capital.
The bar owner took an immediate dislike to having competition and started by filing repeated nuisance complaints with local police over the music volume coming from the new neighbours’ terrace from June 2015 until April 2017.
Then he followed this up by constantly filming them with a camera while they worked, including coming up to them and shoving it in their faces. He even installed a camera on his own premises that focused on the other bar, apparently disturbing their customers.
The behaviour distressed the couple over the long-term, who suffered psychological damage including depressive anxiety disorder and mild post-traumatic stress disorder.