Wed, Mar 07, 2012

The New Paper

The longest voicemail lasted 54 minutes. She once received 21 voicemails from the fan in a single day. On another day, the woman called her 16 times.

When former Straits Times journalist Joanne Lee, 37, returned to work from her annual leave in August 2009, she found more than 100 voicemails left by the same fan in just one week.

Miss Lee felt harassed, was distracted from her work and suffered anxiety attacks.

The fan, Amy Chua, who was later found to be suffering from schizophrenia, had stalked Miss Lee throughout her four-year career with Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).

Last April, Chua, 35, a freelance interior designer, was charged and fined $4,000 for harassing Miss Lee on four occasions in 2008 and 2009.

She stopped harassing Miss Lee after the verdict.

But instead of feeling relieved, Miss Lee has become more worried.

"Suddenly, I don't know what is happening with her," said Miss Lee. "I don't know what her next move might be. Suddenly, not hearing from her made me even more anxious than ever.

"I was too distracted to do anything well. And I really needed to leave (The Straits Times) so that I could just leave this entire episode behind me."

Miss Lee resigned last September.

"It wasn't an easy choice to make. But after four years, enough is enough. I had to take my life back into my own hands."

She has now decided to share her story because she feels the need for greater public awareness about stalking. She also wants tougher harassment laws in Singapore.

Autograph

Miss Lee first met Chua when she was a news anchor for Channel NewsAsia in 2005. Chua had waited for her outside MediaCorp building and had approached her for an autograph.

Miss Lee recalled receiving a letter from Chua earlier on. But she had thought it was just fan mail.

That year, Miss Lee left MediaCorp to pursue her master's degree and worked in private equity.

In 2008, she joined The Straits Times as a senior correspondent. Her first article, published on the front page of The Straits Times, carried her photo byline.

A few days later, she received a handwritten letter from Chua, posted to SPH. In the letter, Chua declared her love for Miss Lee.

Soon after, she was getting e-mails from Chua.

She said: "In her hundreds of correspondences, she claims to be my husband of 10 years, calls herself my 'hubby', asks after 'our baby', accuses me of having relationships with other people (women and men) and cheating on her."

In her letters, e-mails and voicemails to Miss Lee, Chua calls her "honey" and sometimes "wifey".

She told Miss Lee where she lived with her mother, her phone numbers and that she was on medication. She even sent a photo of herself to Miss Lee.

In May 2008, Miss Lee mentioned in one of her regular columns that she had been to the now-closed Borders at Wheelock Place.

The following Monday, she got an e-mail from Chua saying that she'd waited for her at Borders all weekend.

Miss Lee freaked out after reading the e-mail and stopped going to Orchard Road alone.

She said: "My social life was affected... And if I were meeting friends, I would arrive late because I didn't like being alone in public places.

"When I told my family and friends about Chua, they were all dismissive. Everyone just told me to 'get over it'.

"Nobody seemed to understand, not even my then-boyfriend."

Miss Lee showed Chua's e-mails and letters to a psychiatrist, who told her that Chua was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and erotomania (the delusional belief that someone is in love with you).

Though Miss Lee felt sorry for Chua and her mother, she was distressed and unable to sleep well.

Migraines

She began suffering from migraines and anxiety attacks. She then decided to see a doctor in private practice, so that her employers would not find out about her stress.

For more than a year, Miss Lee suffered in silence.

It was only after reading an e-mail from Chua in June 2009 that she decided to file a police report.

In the e-mail, Chua wrote about wanting to hire a private investigator to find out where Miss Lee lived so that she could hang around Miss Lee's home and get to see her.

She even talked about wanting to whisk Miss Lee away on a holiday. Fearing for her safety, Miss Lee went straight to the police.

"The police counselled Chua and told her to leave me alone. It was all they could do as she had not physically confronted me," said Miss Lee.

Despite the police advice, Chua became more aggressive in pursuing Miss Lee, calling her in the office and leaving her voicemails.

When Miss Lee got her colleagues to screen her calls, Chua would pester them for information on Miss Lee.

Once, Chua even waited for Miss Lee at the lobby of SPH building.

"Every day I went to work, I would be scanning the lobby to see if she was around. I would hurry upstairs to my office and skip lunch on most days.

"After work, I would wait for the lobby to be closed before I called a cab into the office to go home," said Miss Lee.

There was never threat of physical harm, but Chua's letters and e-mails were chilling to read.

In one e-mail, Chua wrote: "You are driving me... You know ah, it's because of people like you that there are hospitals for people like me."

Miss Lee decided to file a second police report.

Chua was then sent to the Institute of Mental Health for a psychiatric evaluation that lasted three weeks.

After Chua's release, Miss Lee's nightmare continued. She had to read every e-mail and letter from Chua, and listened to all her voicemails after she got home from work, on the advice of her psychiatrist.

"I was told that it is important for me to read her e-mails and listen to her voicemails, so that I would know about her mental state," said Miss Lee.

On her birthday, in August 2009, Chua sent her flowers and love letters, and warned Miss Lee not to inform the police. But Miss Lee filed a third report the following month. Chua was charged in December 2010, after enough evidence was gathered.

Miss Lee said that it was only after she left SPH that she could put the entire episode behind her.

After getting her health and life back, Miss Lee shared her story with Her World magazine. The feature appeared last month.

"The victim's side of the story needs to be told," said Miss Lee, who plans to write a book about her experience.

Is she worried that the media attention would affect Chua?

"No, the likelihood of her stalking me is less as she wouldn't know where to find me now," she said. Still, she remains wary.

"The police and psychiatrist have warned me that stalkers never disappear."

This article was first published in The New Paper.

more: harassment, stalking