A construction company boss who stalked his ex-partner for over 18 months has been jailed for what a judge called a “campaign of harassment”.
Andrew James Grant’s on-off relationship with the woman ended in mid-2018. Thereafter Grant, 45, repeatedly made unwanted contact despite being arrested three times. He and his rental van were often spotted close to his former partner’s West Cumbria home.
As his criminal conduct continued, Grant set up fake Facebook profiles and sent messages to the woman, one including a reference to the fact that he’d “died”. He then made what prosecutor Tim Evans told Carlisle Crown Court was a “twisted” offer to help and collect evidence in a bid to unmask the supposed perpetrator — which phone evidence later showed was him.
Grant paid money into her account and even sent messages from an unknown number regarding the contraction of a sexually transmitted disease. In October 2019, he clipped her partner’s leg with his van in a desperate getaway bid while reversing at speed after being spotted near her house.
“This was persistent, calculated stalking with nasty and frightening elements to it,” said Mr Evans. Grant admitted stalking between August 2018, and February 2020; and careless driving.
The woman suffered nightmares and was forced to move having felt in danger in her own house; and, added the prosecutor, she “fervently hopes this defendant will come to realise that women cannot be treated in this way”.
Grant ran a thriving construction company which his barrister said would “collapse” if he were imprisoned. Jailing him for 30 months, Judge Richard Archer observed Grant had engaged in a multi-faceted “campaign of harassment”, saying: “It had, at its heart, a high level of persistence; a high degree of malevolence. It was significantly premeditated.”
Judge Archer added: “Nothing, it seems, was going to deter you from making your victim’s life a misery.” Grant, previously of Graham Street, Carlisle, must serve a year’s driving ban when released and received an indefinite restraining order.
