[Ark2]

First, let me just apologize for the length of this post. For those with the patience to read all of it, thank you.

A little background on the situation. My girlfriend is 23 and she and I have been dating for about a year and a half now.

In 2005, she was 15 years old and while waiting at a cross walk, a man in his mid to late twenties walked up beside her and asked her if she knew what time it was. He then began to tell her how beautiful she is to the point where she felt uncomfortable. As she began to cross the road, he followed behind her right on her heels, but they eventually went their separate ways.

A few weeks later, she ran into him again. As before, he asked her what time it was and then proceeded to tell her how beautiful and sexy she is. For the next couple of years, she would run into him once or twice a month, but nothing would happen beyond the scenarios described above. In 2007 however, she got on a city bus to go to work and he got on at the same time. The bus was fairly empty however he sat in front of her in a way that they were facing each other. He was wearing track pants and had an erection and he just sat there smiling at her. Things did not escalate beyond that but naturally she was terrified.

Later that year she moved away for school and did not see him during that time. About two years ago she moved back home and she had not run into him since, until last week. She works in retail and he was shopping at her store. While at the store, he didn’t acknowledge her and just continued shopping. However, 2 hours later when her shift ended, he was waiting for her outside the store and followed her to her car. As she got to her car, she turned around and confronted him, asking him what his problem is. He brushed her off and said he was just walking to the grocery store.

After hearing this, we talked it over and agreed that she should speak with the police. The police came over to her house Monday night and she told them all of the above. She also gave a physical description of the person, along with his license plate number. Last night, the police officer called her back and advised that the license plate is registered under someone’s name who is on the Sex Offender Registry. Because of privacy laws, he explained that he could not tell her the person’s name or where he lived (the Sex Offender Registry is kept private in Ontario). The officer asked her if she wanted to press charges and she said that she did. She’ll be going down to the police station this weekend to identify his picture out of a line-up and give a recorded interview about the events that took place. My question is, beyond this, what does pressing charges involve? Despite the fact that this whole situation scares both of us, I wouldn’t have thought that the above would be grounds for pressing charges. Is it different for sex offenders? Anyone have knowledge about this sort of thing?