I’ll be watching but you won’t see me
Sinister texts of company boss who stalked his ex for a year
AN OBSESSED company director spied on his ex-lover for almost a year, telling the terrified mother of two ‘I will be watching you but you will not see me’, a court heard.
After the collapse of their five-year relationship, David Chell, 51, began following Lorna Baker as she went about her daily routine and sending her disturbing messages.
One read: ‘I saw you this morning ... I’m not stalking you honest.’
Miss Baker, an administrative worker in her 40s, told him to leave her alone and branded him ‘a monster’ after he threatened ‘you will never be rid of me’, forcing her to change her phone number.
Now Chell has been handed a threeyear restraining order barring him from contacting the victim or loitering near her home or her children’s school after being convicted of stalking.
The couple began dating in 2011 after Miss Baker got a job as a bookkeeper at a plastics factory near Manchester where Chell worked as a commercial director, Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard.
They split in January 2016 but she began receiving silent calls from a withheld number, later seeing Chell – who has children from a former marriage – following her as she did the school run.
Despite living over an hour’s drive away in Stoke- on-Trent, he began parking outside her home and on one occasion sent her a text saying: ‘I saw you this morning you all look very well – I’m not stalking you honest.’
When she dropped off or picked up her children from primary school, Chell would be parked nearby, she said.
One night as Miss Baker was about to go to bed she got a message saying: ‘Don’t turn out the lights, I might be leaving soon and if so please say goodbye.’ When she told him to leave her never claimed alone be he rid he was retorted of dying. me’ and ‘ you even will
After calling the police she said in a statement: ‘He is not letting me move on. On occasions I receive text messages with just a full stop or question mark – I just feel he’s telling me he’s still there. I also have received messages saying “you look well” and “I will be watching you but you will not see me”.
‘I’ve changed my phone number which I had for 15 years so he couldn’t told the contact court: me.’ ‘I found Miss Baker the thought of someone watching me or following me when I don’t see them to be very creepy. ‘At home I was in the house on my own, it was at night and I feel he was outside. It made me feel very uneasy.’ In July 2016 she sent him a text message warning: ‘This is my final attempt to make it clear to leave me alone. You have treated me terribly, lied, cheated.’ She added: ‘The police are aware of your harassment so stop now. You have done nothing but torture me for months and use me and my kids. All I see before me is a monster.’
Chell apologised, claiming he was ‘only trying to help’ and she dropped her complaint after he stopped bothering her.
But in October 2016 while on the school run near her home in Sale, Greater Manchester, she spotted him driving behind her.
Miss Baker said: ‘I couldn’t believe it was him and it made me feel a fool for retracting my statement.’ She continued: ‘I
‘You will never be rid of me’
find it very hard to think it was accidental – not at that time in the morning in busy traffic.’
Miss Baker said the ordeal stopped her from letting her children have sleepovers or play outside as often as they used to.
Chell, who claimed to have ME, told the court he had spent three years ‘almost living’ with Miss Baker and her children but they broke up after he doubted whether he could ‘commit the rest of my life to that situation’.
He denied stalking, insisting that when she spotted him near her house or school it had been sheer coincidence.
Passing sentence, District Judge James Hatton also ordered Chell to complete 150 hours’ unpaid work and pay £625 in costs and surcharges.