Hartlepool man threatened to petrol bomb house with woman's children at home after bombarding her with messages

An obsessive man bombarded a woman he had only just met with bizarre and threatening messages on social media, forcing her to leave her home out of fear.
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Daryl Forster, 31, promised to take care of the woman while in other messages threatened to strangle her and petrol bomb her mother’s house.

Teesside Crown Court heard he met the woman for the first time last summer when she went to his flat after previously knowing each other only on Facebook.

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Uzma Khan, prosecuting, said: “[Over the next four days] she relentlessly receives numerous text messages, snapchats, phone calls and Facebook Messenger communications from the defendant.

Forster bombarded the woman with unwanted calls and messages.Forster bombarded the woman with unwanted calls and messages.
Forster bombarded the woman with unwanted calls and messages.

"She describes this contact as being unwanted and feels scared to the extent that she decides not to remain at her home or alone at the address.”

The victim considered the relationship purely platonic, but the court heard Forster put “fanciful” Facebook posts about looking after her and her children.

But he later sent her a video message in which he threatened to choke her “until her eyes are blue”.

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She agreed to meet him on the Headland after he threatened to petrol bomb her mother’s house with her children.

Ms Khan said Forster spoke about going to live where no one could find her and showed her a craft knife and screwdriver.

She became scared and contacted a friend to ask them to call the police who arrived and arrested him.

Forster, of Ibrox Grove, Hartlepool, was convicted of harassment and also assaulting a police officer when he struck a policeman in the groin while resisting arrest on April 8 last year.

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He was cleared of allegations of stalking and two counts of threatening a person with a blade in public.

Christine Egerton, mitigating, said Forster was anxious to avoid immediate prison and had served six and a half months in custody while on remand.

The judge Recorder Tahir Khan said: “You embarked on a course of intimidation, threats, causing fear of violence to [the victim] which had a marked impact upon her well-being.

“There was no good reason for you to behave in the way that you did.”

Forster was given 18 months prison suspended for two years and 150 hours community work.

He was also given probation and was slapped with an indefinite restraining order.