Andy Collins as a Smurf
Tiny terror Andrew Collins has sparked fury in Fermanagh over Facebook claims he was set up on an exposure charge.
Collins, who calls himself the “smallest person in Enniskillen”, is due to be sentenced later this month for pushing his way into a woman’s home in the town and exposing himself.
His female victim was left distraught by the incident and friends say she felt suicidal.
A district judge rejected his claims that the incident never happened and convicted him of the offence.
But within hours of leaving court, Collins had blamed his victim for the conviction and made shocking claims that she had been paid to testify against him.
In a Facebook rant he claimed: “There’s 2 sides to every story. People pay a woman to go to police and make up lies to paper to cover themselves up. I could name and shame a few people but that’s not me.”
The tirade caused outrage in the town, where 29-year-old Collins, who dresses as a Smurf for stag and hen parties, is well known.
His victim told the court she had felt vulnerable after the incident, which took place in November 2013.
She described how he had pushed past her and sat down in her living room before exposing himself.
“It made me feel really upset. He had pulled his trousers down and he was erect,” she told Collins’s trial.
When she fled to a neighbour’s house the flasher followed her, where his victim confronted him and told him to stay away from her.
Andy Collins
Bizarrely he then went to police to complain he’d been harassed.
The neighbour who helped his victim told the Sunday World: “I’m not a liar and neither is my friend. This is Andrew Collins making things up. How dare he go into someone’s home and expose himself and then call her a liar.
“He phoned the police before his victim did because he knew what he did was wrong and he wanted to get his speak in first,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified.
She said the incident had left her friend feeling suicidal.
“She came into me and gave me her watch and told me to keep it. It was only after she left that I thought she was going to harm herself. She had to spend time in hospital afterwards.”
The angry neighbour said Collins’s allegations that she or her friend were paid to make up details of the incident were ludicrous.
“It’s disgraceful he can say these things about people when he was the one who was found guilty in court.”
Collins will be sentenced on October 20