Former student stalked, harassed teacher, then had affair with her husband

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Photo: SUPPLIED/NZME

The photo of a young woman, posing in a bathroom mirror, was the final straw for Sarah*.

The photo had been taken in her bathroom and the obsessed woman who had stalked her for almost eight years had not been invited inside.

At least, not by Sarah.

Sarah, a teacher, had tried her best to ignore the woman, who previously attended the school where she taught, despite the hundreds of messages, calls and friend requests on social media, and the fake accounts made in her name by the younger woman over the years.

She'd done everything to protect her children as well, including changing her routes to get home, installing security cameras, guarding her online presence and not letting anyone know where she lived.

Then, in 2023, she received a message from another former student, notifying her that the woman had posted online that she'd been having an affair with Sarah's husband, and a friend request from the woman soon followed.

Finally, Sarah took the bait.

"I can't even describe what I went into, it was a weird state of shock," she told NZME.

Sarah said the woman disclosed that she'd been having an affair with her husband and provided screenshots of messages between them as proof.

Part of that proof was a selfie of the woman taken in a mirror at Sarah's home.

"This woman - whom I had a gut instinct, deep fear of from the time she started at my school - when she sent that photo… I was worried about my kids," she said, "I worried about what she'd seen, worried about how thick I'd been to have not seen any of it.

"It is the worst-ever nightmare I could have ever imagined."

Sarah said she didn't sleep for days, aft