'˜Extreme' stalker jailed for harassing Havant woman

Michael Holden was ‘infatuated’ with a Havant woman he two-timed during their relationship, but could not cope when she gave him the boot.

Between February and June last year the 31-year-old sent his ex videos of him slashing his wrists, hanging from a tree and ‘overdosing’ on pills, which turned out to be made from sugar.

Holden repeatedly drove past her home and sent her messages in Polish saying she should be raped and executed.

The unemployed MOT tester even crashed his car, telling the woman he had done so because she would not get back together with him.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard she was involved in nursing him back to health after the crash, but he carried on the stalking.

And in a chance sighting on a motorway he veered at the last minute off a junction sliproad to follow her new partner home.

On June 3 he sent her a message while she was at home alone drinking wine, saying: ‘I can see you, where’s my glass of wine?’

The victim told police: ‘I had no life, he seems to control everything.’

The judge, Nicolas Gerasimidis, said: ‘By June 2016 her phone was crashing due to the number of calls that you were making to persuade her, to control her, to manipulate her, to behave in a way that you wanted her to.’

Dad-of-one Holden, 31, formerly of Millfield Close, Chichester, was jailed for two years for stalking, causing serious alarm or distress.

Holden used naked images of his ex for a Facebook profile. He was charged with revenge porn, but the CPS dropped this as it was part of the stalking.

Tayo Adebayo, mitigating, said Holden was very sorry and ‘was infatuated and that he accepted that he caused her distress and anxiety’.

Sentencing, Recorder Gerasimidis said: ‘It’s had a lasting effect on your victim, your behaviour was extreme.

‘It’s thoroughly horrific what this sort of behaviour can do to someone.’

He added: ‘It’s also clear to me you do not have any real empathy or understanding of the effect on your victim or shown any real remorse.’

A restraining order was imposed banning Holden from contacting the victim or her partner.