A stalker used fake names to set up new profiles on Tinder and then message his ex partner after she left him.
Colin Hamilton took his deception to such great lengths that he started two online relationships with with her, with his former girlfriend believing she had met someone new each time.During one of the ‘relationships’, Thomasine Knox sent ‘Lee’ intimate pictures of herself not realising who she was speaking to.
He also posed as a man called Michael Abbott, claiming he did it to show her how much they still had in common.
Hamilton was arrested for stalking after he turned nasty and threatened to post her images on social media.
He had pestered Ms Knox with scores of phone calls and messages when they broke up in 2019 after a 23 year relationship during which they had seven children.
The court heard how Hamilton also set up a false Snapchat account in her name which he used to track her movements, using it to turn up and cause a scene at a pub where she was with another man.
Bathsheba Cassel, prosecuting, said the stalking started after the relationship ended in June 2019 and carried on until his arrest in December.
He was jealous and turned up at her home, sent her unwanted messages and used a fake Snapchat profile in her name to spy on her movements.
On a single day in November, he made 56 calls to her.
Ms Knox said in victim personal statement that she just wanted to get on with her life without him, but feared he would always be watching her.
She said: ‘I never wanted a prison sentence for him. I just need him to understand that what he did was wrong.’
Richard Crabb, defending, said Hamilton found it hard to cope with the break-up but there was no violence and he has obeyed a non-molestation order.
He has moved on with his own life and has a new partner and contact with his younger children is being organised by their older siblings. He has no previous convictions.
A judge at Exeter Crown Court said that although he ‘would love’ to send him to prison in ‘many ways’, he sentenced him to unpaid work instead because his ex had requested that.
Ms Knox had agreed to drop more serious charges.
Recorder Mr Adam Feest QC told him: ‘Your behaviour towards your former partner was despicable; there is no other word for it. Relationships, sadly, come to an end sometimes and people have to deal with it, but not in the way you did.
‘You went to great lengths to make her life completely miserable and must have known the effect it would have on her. This is among the most extreme of these types of cases.
‘It was her decision to let you plead to the lesser offence. In many ways I would love to send you to prison, but I am not going to ignore her wishes in the same way as you did.
‘It is very generous of her in view of all the circumstances.’
He banned him from contacting her for ten years under a restraining order and warned him he will go to jail if he breaks it.
Hamilton, aged 47, of Braunton, admitted stalking and was ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid community work and 30 days of rehabilitation activities.
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