A Loughborough stalker has been jailed after sending hundreds of threatening messages to police officers and staff as part of a campaign of harassment directed at a woman he was obsessed with.
Scott Walters bombarded 10 different Nottinghamshire Police employees with malicious emails after becoming obsessed with a female member of the public.
The 50-year-old sent more than 400 messages at various points between July 2020 and December 2022, with the emails becoming more aggressive over time.
Walters, of Ratcliffe Road in Loughborough, began by sending a series of unwanted messages to a woman he’d become fixated with – behaviour that amounted to stalking and led to him being arrested.
Despite this, he continued to contact the individual, while also harassing an officer investigating the case, as well as other officers and police staff, via a string of emails designed to try and intimidate them.
The malicious communications finally stopped in December 2022, with Walters going on to be charged with multiple offences.
These included stalking involving serious distress, harassment without violence, and sending communications conveying a threatening message.
He was also charged with separate counts of stalking without fear and sending communications conveying an offensive message.
Stalking offences are defined by a pattern of fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviours – either in person or through remote means like social media.
Having pleaded guilty to each of the charges, Walters appeared before Nottingham Crown Court for sentencing last Thursday (6 July).
He was sentenced to 17 months in prison and was given a five-year restraining order preventing him from contacting any of his victims in any way.
PC Stephanie Sharpe, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Walters carried out a deliberate and sustained campaign of harassment on multiple serving police officers and police staff.
“His obsessive behaviour completely crossed the line, with his persistent and aggressive attempts to contact individual officers amounting to stalking.
“In total, Walters sent in excess of 400 different inappropriate messages – none of which were wanted by those receiving them.
“He will have known exactly what kind of impact his words and actions would’ve had, yet he carried on doing it anyway.
“It really should go without saying but this type of behaviour is completely unacceptable.
“This is an example of the different forms stalking can take – it isn’t just limited to physically following someone – with this level of harassment really impacting people’s lives.
“We take all reports of stalking extremely seriously and take an increasingly robust approach to protecting victims, with this work leading to us charging 40 per cent more people for these offences over the last year than the year before.
“It is really important that all victims of stalking know we are here to help them and that they can contact us at any time to report an offence against them or someone they know.”
Anyone who’s affected by this should contact police on 101, or 999 in an emergency.
