A Wealthy student who employed a bodyguard after being stalked across Europe has been awarded £15,000 compensation and a restraining order against her pursuer.
Raffaella Maisto, 23, who read law and German at King’s College London, was stalked by besotted Greek hedge fund manager Alexis Kyrgiannakis, the High Court heard.
The financier, 34, “deluged” Miss Maisto, from Elephant & Castle, with text messages and phone calls.
Some of the messages were “unpleasantly sexual, and becoming threatening and menacing in tone”, the judge said.
Miss Maisto, an Italian who has studied classics, became friends with Kyrgiannakis in 2010 and they enjoyed discussing Greek history.
She made it clear that she did not want a relationship but he would not take no for an answer, and “kept her prisoner overnight” at his Chelsea studio flat last year, the court heard.
He began removing her clothes and made her stay the night before freeing her, the court was told.
Mr Justice Kenneth Parker said Kyrgiannakis “foisted himself on her” and hounded her in London and on the Continent. He stalked her in Berlin, where she was studying, and even appeared during a family holiday in Sardinia.
Kyrgiannakis followed her on the Tube and to the cinema, and the harassment became so bad that her parents, who own homes in Milan and South Kensington, employed a bodyguard.
Miss Maisto moved home and changed her mobile number but Kyrgiannakis still pursued her, which affected her ability to enjoy her studies and social life. The judge made a permanent restraining order under the Harassment Act and ordered Kyrgiannakis to pay Miss Maisto £15,000 damages and her “very substantial” legal costs.
The court heard that Kyrgiannakis has since left Britain and may have returned to Greece.
Miss Maisto declined to comment.
