Nicola Thorp's stalker has been jailed for 30 months.
Nicola Thorp's stalker has been jailed for 30 months
The former 'Coronation Street' star was terrorised for two years by a stalker who called himself "the Grim Reaper", and used 25 aliases to torment her online.
Nicola faced Ravinderjit Dhillon, 30, at East London’s Snaresbrook crown court on Tuesday (05.12.23), and he was jailed for 30 months.
According to The Sun newspaper, she said in an impact statement to the court: "I lived in fear that this anonymous man who had hounded me for years was in fact someone I knew.
"If you don't know who the person behind the keyboard is, he becomes everyone you meet and everyone you've ever met.
"All that time he knew exactly who I was and I knew nothing of him.
"When I was shown a photo of him it meant I had some freedom back, and only the freedom to run away if I saw him in the street."
Sentencing Dhillon, Judge Rosa Dean said: "Nicola Thorp was a total stranger to you. She is well known and she campaign's for women's rights.
"I am quite sure you targeted her because of her celebrity and in part due to her determination to call out abusive and misogynistic behaviour."
Quentin Hunt, defending, told the court that Dhillon suffers from mental health problems, and said he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was sectioned in 2016.
Nicola previously gave an 89-page document to the Met Police about Dhillon's campaign of terror, which began with him sending her an intimate image of himself in October 2018.
Police tracked him down using his IP address.
Earlier this year, Nicola, 35, told the court: "He became an army of men all wanting to do me harm, threats to rape me.
"I’ve spent most of my adult life fighting for the rights of women and doing so in the public eye has come with some personal cost.
"I became the target of the exact behaviour I was standing up against.”
She recalled messages sent by Dhillon describing himself as her "grim reaper", adding: "He sent messages saying, ‘I’m going to be with you forever’, ‘I’m your grim reaper’. In one message he said 28 times he wasn’t going to leave me.”
In April, Dhillon was convicted of stalking the ex-'Corrie' actress involving fear of violence after a trial at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court.
He has an indefinite restraining order not to approach the cobbles star.