Ads chief jailed for stalking ex as she battled cancer
AN obsessed businessman who waged a vindictive stalking campaign against his ex-wife while she battled cancer has been jailed.
Company director Jamie Harrison-McDougall hounded Sheena Leung, 38 – who is having chemotherapy for stage four breast cancer – in a battle over their two children, a court was told.
The stress had been affecting the effectiveness of her cancer treatment, the court was told.
Despite a restraining order, Harrison-McDougall, 35, repeatedly turned up uninvited at her home while she was shielding during lockdown – prompting one of her children to ask: ‘Why is daddy stalking us?’
Harrison-McDougall, an internet advertising boss, also sent nui
‘I am really scared’
sance calls and texts and made menacing remarks about her boyfriend, a court heard. Now he has been jailed for 15 months and banned from contacting Miss Leung for life.
Harrison-McDougall had been issued with a restraining order last December after he attacked her, vandalised a Mercedes belonging to her sister and damaged her father’s car.
He was arrested in May after he ignored the court order ten times, Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, heard.
‘This has made me feel assaulted, worried, paranoid and anxious,’ said Miss Leung. ‘I am looking over my shoulder and really scared of what is going to happen, given the number of times he has breached the restraining order.
‘My children have noticed this and one of them has asked me “Why is daddy stalking us?” The fact it is impacting on my children adds to the stress and anxiety. I have stage four breast cancer and I worry about my condition becoming unmanageable.’
The court heard they had been married for 16 years and had two children aged eight and ten. They split up in January last year amid claims he had been unfaithful.
Prosecutor Rachel Widdecombe told the hearing that HarrisonMcDougall had been ‘ abusive towards her mentally and physically’ from the start and was ‘unsupportive’ following her 2018 cancer diagnosis.
She had cameras installed at her home in Timperley, near Altrincham, after he smashed her father’s car and ‘keyed’ her sister’s, and the restraining order was imposed.
After the imposition of lockdown, he sent Easter eggs and clothes for their children, Miss Widdecombe said. But he then began harassing her with calls.
On April 17 he turned up at the property and ‘ began shouting from the end of the drive’, the prosecutor said. Just over a week later he parked outside the house with a balaclava covering his face.
He also repeatedly called and texted her, but she hung up and took screenshots to show police.
Harrison-McDougall’s lawyer Isobel Thomas claimed his primary concern had been contact with his children.
The defendant, of Eccles, admitted ten charges of breaching a restraining order.
Judge Sophie McKone told him he had intended to ‘intimidate and frighten’ his ex-wife. ‘That stress affects the effectiveness of her cancer treatment,’ she added.