Ex-soldier admits stalking TV host Louise
AN ex-soldier who sent a death threat to former BBC Breakfast host Louise Minchin and claimed he was going to rape her daughter was facing jail yesterday.
Carl Davies, an ex-boyfriend of Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts who threatened to stab her after they split up, abused the 53-year-old presenter on social media, a court heard.
Davies, 44, sent Mrs Minchin one message linked to her home address warning: ‘You won’t be living.’ He also sent sexually threatening comments to her Instagram account, including one saying: ‘Your daughter will be raped.’
An earlier hearing was told how Mrs Minchin – who left BBC Breakfast last month after two decades – lived in a ‘constant state of anxiety’ as a result of the threats.
Davies’s barrister Duncan Bould blamed post-traumatic stress disorder from his time serving in Iraq and claimed he had been too drunk to know what he was doing when he sent the messages.
He was due to stand trial at Caernarfon Crown Court yesterday but changed his pleas and admitted stalking involving serious alarm or distress to Mrs Minchin and her elder daughter Mia, now 20, between July 14 and July 17, 2020.
Judge Nicola Saffman described his messages as ‘extremely alarming, very serious, very intimidating and clearly intended to maximise distress of the complainants in this case’.
Mr Bould, said Davies appreciated his record would be ‘worrying’ for the court.
He said: ‘He maintained a not guilty stance because he simply can’t recognise, from what’s contained in the papers, the behaviour of the person who contacted the two victims.’
Psychiatric and pre-sentence reports will be prepared before Davies, of Flint, North Wales, is sentenced in December.
Releasing him on bail, Judge Saffman warned Davies ‘the most likely sentence will be one of immediate imprisonment’.
Four years ago Davies was given a suspended prison sentence after threatening to stab and burn pop star Miss Roberts and sending 3,000 messages after they split in 2008.
Miss Roberts, now 36, demanded tougher action against stalkers, telling MPs: ‘When somebody sends a message saying, “Those are nice pyjamas”, you think, “Is he able to see into my house?”
‘When someone plants vicious seeds you imagine every possible outcome.’