Stalker posed as ex on Plenty of Fish and sent men to house

Brian Taylor also sent his victim a condom in the post as well as letters wishing cancer upon her during a vile campaign of harassment that lasted months.

But the postman was spared jail this week.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the 49-year-old and his former partner, who lives in Warrington, first met on dating site Match.com in January 2018.

The pair dated until June that year, when she ended the relationship as the defendant’s estranged wife had moved back in with him.

Taylor, from Bolton, ‘appeared to take the situation well’ and the pair stayed in touch until she entered a new relationship in November 2018.

She still regarded him as ‘one of the nicest, most genuine people she had ever met’.

But in May 2019, he sent her a loose condom via the Royal Mail.

Around a week later, he began bombarding her with phone calls from a withheld number.

When the complainant answered, she could only hear static noise and giggling – receiving as many as 47 calls in one day.

She then started to receive anonymous letters, in which Taylor stated that he hoped she would get cancer and ‘die in pain’.

He left more than a dozen voicemails, which appeared to consist of sex noises.

Then, in August last year, a man attempted to enter her home uninvited.

A number of other men subsequently turned up at the address, and police quizzed one who was waiting outside in his car.

He told officers that he had been in contact with a woman on Plenty of Fish and was invited to go to her house ‘for a leg over’, and had been instructed to enter without knocking.

The victim did not initially suspect the defendant, even meeting up for coffee with him.

Taylor ‘appeared to be shocked’ when he was told what had been happening to her, but his DNA was later found on a package he had sent to her and he was arrested.

His offending had a ‘profound effect’ on his ex, causing her insomnia, nightmares, ‘extreme’ anxiety and a ‘severe loss of confidence’.

She was forced to move into a safehouse for nine weeks and installed security cameras at her home as a result.

Taylor also sent a string of abusive text messages to three other victims, including women he met on Match.com and eharmony.

The dad, who has no previous convictions, admitted stalking and three counts of harassment during an earlier hearing.

Defence barrister Simon Christie told the court that his client’s behaviour had been a result of stress from daily disputes with his neighbours and his ongoing divorce.

Judge Garrett Byrne handed Taylor an 18-month imprisonment suspended for two years on Monday, August 3.

Sentencing, he said: “This behaviour was absolutely appalling.

“It’s extraordinary that you should reach your time of life a clean record and suddenly embark upon this behaviour.

“It is very difficult to understand why you did it.

“I accept that this is very much out of character and highly unusual behaviour for you, and it does not appear to have been underpinned by any serious psychological issues.

“But I do accept that you suffered from years of negative behaviour from other people.

“Even though it doesn’t justify what you did, what it did do was create a pressure cooker situation and caused you to go on to commit this offending.

“There is, in my view, a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.

“You will be going to prison for 18 months if you repeat this behaviour in any way.”

Taylor was also given a 20-day rehabilitation activity requirement and 80 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay compensation of £620 in order to cover the victim’s costs of moving to the safehouse.

Restraining orders preventing him from contacting all four victims were also imposed indefinitely.