Ex-policeman is jailed for stalking former girlfriend
AN EX-policeman has been jailed for continuing to ‘obsessively’ stalk his former girlfriend despite being hit with a restraining order.
Basil Thomas, 50, formerly of Home Farm Avenue, Macclesfield, breached his order within a month of it being issued.
He followed his victim around a supermarket in Macclesfield and when she returned home and checked CCTV he was seen climbing over a wall into her garden.
Thomas interfered with the camera by repositioning it so it faced the sky but when he removed a black mask from his face he was still caught on film.
He also turned up outside the hospice his victim’s terminally-ill mother was in.
After she contacted the police a tracking device was later found on her car.
At Chester Crown Court on Monday, October 28, Thomas was jailed for three years.
He had admitted stalking and breaching a restraining order at a previous hearing.
It had been imposed in June this year at Stockport Magistrates Court and banned him from contact with his ex-girlfriend or entering the road she lived on.
Thomas had bombarded his victim, 46, from Bollington, with letters, emails and visits after their six-year relationship had ended.
On Valentine’s Day he covered her car in confetti and love hearts and left a card, gifts and balloons on her doorstep.
At the hearing where a restraining order was imposed a statement from the victim said: “The intensity of the letters, emails and visits to my home increased and I felt more and more distressed he has continued contact with me and my family.
“I am more concerned about what he will do next, I have been devastated by his continued contact.”
Thomas, who moved to Cranleigh Drive, in Cheadle, served as a police officer for several decades and also ran his own private investigation firm.
Speaking after the sentencing Detective Constable Alison Shields, from Cheshire Police, said: “This case has proved yet again how Thomas is an obsessive stalker. “Despite knowing the clear distress his behaviour had caused in the past he dismissed his victim’s feelings and continued to cause her pain by going to great lengths to follow her.
“The victim has been incredibly brave in coming forward to report Thomas.”