A SERIAL stalker from Ashburton has been jailed after he used an interactive PlayStation game to contact his ex-partner just days after being released from prison.
Craig Hocking changed his user name to send messages such as ‘call me’ and ‘miss you’ to the victim who eventually succumbed to his pressure and arranged to meet him.
Hocking then resumed his stalking when she tried to distance herself again and put her under such stress that she went to Berry Head with the intention of taking her own life.
Hocking had stalked her earlier in the year and been held in custody on remand before being freed on a suspended sentence by a judge at Exeter Crown Court on May 10.
He was made subject of a restraining order which banned any contact but he broke it that day by going to a seafront car park in Torbay where he knew the victim often went to look at the sea.
He then used her PlayStation to send the messages which begged her to contact him. It led to her seeing him again before eventually blocking him. He responded by sending more unwanted messages.
Her family called the police after she told them she was thinking of taking her own life.
She wrote a victim personal statement which said: ‘I felt like he was manipulating me again. It made me feel as I did before and feel as if I didn’t like myself. I felt as if I was lost and moving backwards.
‘Please, please, please, leave me alone.’
Hocking, aged 30, of, Balland Park, Ashburton, admitted breaching a restraining order and suspended sentence and was jailed for a total of two years and two months by Judge Peter Johnson at Exeter Crown Court.
He told him: ‘This was a persistent breach of the order on your part over a period of weeks.’
Miss Victoria Bastock, prosecuting, said Hocking’s attempts to contact his ex-partner started within hours of the restraining order being made on May 10 this year.
She saw him in a car park which she went to and then received the messages on her PlayStation on May 13. They included one which said ‘ring and meet’, which is what she did.
Hocking then set about trying to separate her from her new partner and blackmailing her emotionally by threatening to take his own life. He used accounts in different names to carry on contacting her when she blocked him on Snapchat and other media.
Miss Evie Dean, defending, said Hocking did not have time to work with probation before he was arrested and held in custody in mid-June. He is keen to complete a behavioural modification course.
She said he has some learning difficulties and missed a lot of schooling as a result of bullying. He has a job in a shop which he would lose if sent to jail.