Victim’s 3 years of terror at hands of obsessed troll
Wife of city charity campaigner could not escape abuse and threats of ‘full-time’ stalker
THE wife of a well-known Birmingham charity campaigner and champion kick-boxer has spoken of her ‘living nightmare’ after she was stalked in a three-year campaign of vile abuse from a woman she had never met.
Tracey Patterson, the partner of Barrington Patterson – well-known in Birmingham as the reformed football hooligan One Eyed Baz – was left fearing she would never escape her ‘full-time’ abuser Natasha Dawn.
The relentless 43-year-old troll messaged the mother up to 80 times a day, from 8am until 1am.
During the three years of abuse, Dawn sent Mrs Patterson 8,000 messages, including photos of her front door, threats to ‘smash her face in’ and enquiries about her house sitter while they were away on holiday.
“For all that time, I didn’t know what she looked like,” Mrs Patterson told the Post after the troll was jailed last week.
“I was scanning the crowd, thinking: ‘Is she here, what’s she going to do?’ When you don’t know what somebody looks like it’s much worse.
“She was going to do all sorts to me, smash my face in. She called us paedophiles, she contacted my husband’s work, his gym, contacted our children saying not to let us see our grandchildren.
“She posted a picture of my front door and said: ‘Your husband’s just left why don’t you come outside’.
“She must have had such a sad life that she wanted to inflict misery on people on a day-to-day basis – that was her life.”
Dawn, of Sheridan Court, Stapleford,
Nottingham, was jailed for three years at Nottingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to three counts of stalking.
She was described as a full-time troll after setting up more than 100 accounts to conduct her reign of terror.
The campaign of abuse started when Ms Patterson defended actress Daniella Westbrook, who was also being trolled by Dawn, which unknowingly putting herself in the line of fire for similar abuse.
She would call her victim constantly on Instagram and forced the couple to fit CCTV cameras at their home after she described their lounge in vivid detail.
“We went on holiday, she sent me a picture asking if the house sitter was OK,” said Mrs Patterson.
“No matter where I went, I couldn’t get away from her. I just could not, she would call 40 to 50 times a day. I never ever answered the phone to her.”
Dawn would then make threats if Mrs Patterson did not answer to post pictures, including an image of her brother-in-law who died many years ago.
“He was in the picture with my husband and my mother-in-law, and she said: ‘I can see three monkeys here and apes,’” she recalled.
“Every day, I would turn my phone off at night, and when I turned my phone on in the morning the messages would come through, one after the other, sometimes up to 80.
“I used to feel physically sick about what the day would bring because I couldn’t stop her. It was relentless.
“I never felt safe for the whole time because I didn’t know what she looked like. I couldn’t go out on my own, our grown up children, my husband, were worried about my safety.”
During the campaign of abuse, Dawn changed Mr Patterson’s Wikipedia page to say he was dead and Mrs Patterson was forced to block a total of 212 created accounts.
After Dawn was jailed, Mrs Patterson said she was relieved, adding: “I really didn’t expect she would go to prison. It’s a relief that the judge took it seriously and took it for what it
I used to feel physically sick about what the day would bring because I couldn’t stop her. It was relentless. Tracey Patterson
was. It wasn’t just online.
“I forgot what life was like before she came into our life. I couldn’t remember what it was like to be able to wake up and go out of the front door on my own.
“It got to the point where she was making such drastic threats that it was impossible to live a normal dayto-day life.
“It was like living in a nightmare and there was no way out. Even when she was on bail, I was still scared.”
Mrs Patterson also spoke of the impact on their charity, Birmingham’s Homeless Support Team, after Dawn messaged sponsors.
She said: “She was contacting sponsors, as soon as somebody said they would like to donate toiletries she would message them straight away then they would not contact us as they were scared she would start trolling or stalking them.
“We lost a lot of support online,
then Covid happened. At the moment things are looking bleak.”
Dawn was also given a restraining order, banning her from contacting or referring to a number of people on social media, which will go on indefinitely.
Passing sentence, Judge Julie Warburton told Dawn: “You made cruel, vicious comments regarding Mrs Patterson’s mother. One can’t conceive of a more cruel thing to do to another human being.
“It is clear to me you must have been treating this as a full-time occupation.”
Dawn’s legal representation told the court she had no recollection of what had happened and suffered from mental health difficulties.
“This is a lonely and possibly damaged woman,” they said.
“Sitting at home, seldom leaving the house and losing herself in this world of social media and any sense of what is right and what is wrong.”