Dundee kickboxer behind bars after campaign of ‘control’

World champion had bugged ex-partner’s mobile phone

A world champion kick-boxer from Dundee has been jailed for nine months for a campaign of control against a former partner.

Ronnie “The Shark” Clark, 32, installed spyware on Rebecca Graham’s mobile phone and tried to rule her life even after they had split up.

He made menacing demands in a barrage of emails and text messages, and at one point his brother got involved with a sinister warning, telling mother-of-two Miss Graham: “I want to help before the children have no parents.”

Clark is among the first to be prosecuted under new laws making it a crime to engage in controlling or coercive behaviour.

He denied the charge but was convicted by Northallerton magistrates after a trial last month and appeared at Teesside Crown Court for sentence.

The court heard how the woman’s ordeal has taken a devastating toll on her, including sleepless nights and weight loss through anxiety.

In a victim impact statement, she said: “My house has locks, alarms and kick bars, but if he flips out what is that going to do?

“It has caused massive anxiety to me. I have a constant knot in my stomach, random heart palpitations and tingling hands.

“I am weak and exhausted and I’m on tablets for anxiety.”

The court heard that the couple met when she was 13, but their relationship did not begin until 2010 after being in Facebook contact.

Miss Graham became pregnant and they moved to Dundee the following year, prosecutor Nigel Soppitt told the court.

It was initially a happy relationship, but problems arose in 2012 when Miss Graham accused Clark of having affairs and he called her paranoid.

But the court heard that the sportsman fathered a child with another woman.

The court heard that Clark returned to Scotland in September 2015, and over the next two months messaged his ex about her relationships.

He bought her a new phone that Christmas and the software he put on showed him who she was sending texts to – and he threatened to kill a man she was in touch with.

On Miss Graham’s birthday he was in touch to claim he knew where she was and where she had been.

“Effectively, there was some sort of surveillance”, said Mr Soppitt.

Ronnie “The Shark” Clark.