It was Paula Doyle’s best friend who suggested that her husband walk Doyle home. This was a Friday night in September 2019, and Doyle, then 46, a mother of five, had been at their house for a family party. Doyle had helped clear up at the end. It was 1am and she was the last to leave.
Doyle lived close by – three streets and a small stretch of park separated their Dublin houses – and in the past, she would have thought nothing of walking it alone. However, for more than three years, she had been receiving messages from an unknown number. They had started relatively harmlessly (“I’ve seen you around … I’d love to get to know you”) but escalated to graphic images and videos. Doyle and her partner had taken them to the Garda Síochána (the Irish police force), who advised her to block the number, but that didn’t stop them coming in (sometimes more than 50 a day); it only stopped her from having to view them. This was why Doyle allowed her friend’s husband, Aidan Kestell, to walk her home that night. “I thought I’d be safer with him, not knowing who was out there,” she says.
