Estranged husband stalked ex and made acid threat
A JEALOUS husband stalked his estranged wife because he thought she was dating a man from the gym, a court heard.
Beautician Julie Horridge feared she would be disfigured in an acid attack by builder David, 58.
She had split up with Horridge in 2015 after 22 years of marriage. But the pair, who are grandparents, continued to live at their £200,000 home in Tottington, near Bury, Manchester magistrates’ court heard.
Joanne Moore, prosecuting, said when Mrs Horridge, who is in her 40s, returned from a trip last October she noticed Horridge had got an extra key cut for her bedroom. She said: ‘A few weeks later in the gym she was made aware of the fact that the defendant had been in reception asking whether she trains with a guy who is tanned.’
Horridge, who had an assault conviction for giving his wife a black eye, also followed her in his car and kept calling her. She then moved out without telling him where she was living.
Miss Moore said he then contacted Mrs Horridge to warn she would need to remove graffiti from her new home. ‘There is indeed graffiti on her outside wall so he must know where she is living,’ she said. ‘He referenced acid and she was concerned about what else he might do.’
On January 26 she saw Horridge drive past her salon, later finding a note on her car reading: ‘Ring me I need to talk to you, if you don’t ring I’ll come to the shop or gym. The more I don’t hear the madder I’m getting.’
When she returned home with her new partner, Horridge confronted them, shouting: ‘What the f*** are you doing?’
Horridge, who was described as being intoxicated, went back to his car only when it started rolling away because he had left the handbrake off.
Mrs Horridge told police: ‘I’m worried and anxious all the time about where David is and whether he’s watching me.
‘He had threatened to put me in a coma when he gave me a black eye and said if I had a “friend” he would put him in a coma too or stab him in the back. I didn’t like the fact he was going to use acid, I didn’t like the fact he could get his hands on acid.’
A probation report said Horridge had ‘a feeling’ his wife had cheated on him, and he had an ‘obsessional need’ to find out why the relationship ended. Babar Ibrahim, mitigating, said: ‘His behaviour was him not accepting the change in his life.’
Horridge was handed a threeyear restraining order and a 12week suspended sentence after admitting stalking. District Judge James Hatton told him: ‘It’s clear to me Mrs Horridge requires protection from you.
‘You are 58 and a grandfather, if that doesn’t hit home how ridiculous it is that you have acted in this way and how you have made your grandchild’s grandmother feel, then nothing is.’