Stalker ‘made his ex’s life a misery’
A“SINISTER and obsessive” man has been jailed for five years after stalking his ex-partner, who later killed herself.
Sam Knowles’ actions played a “substantial” part in Becky Ellis’ deteriorating mental health in the run-up to her death, a court heard.
Mold Crown Court heard Knowles told his own mother he wanted to force his ex to “hang herself” and “string herself” after their relationship started to collapse.
Knowles expressed remorse for her death and even took bereavement counselling while on remand. But the judge branded that behaviour by the defendant – who had set up 60 Instagram accounts to contact Becky and called her a “slag” – as a “cynical misrepresentation of the truth”.
The court heard Knowles, 25, and Rebecca Paige Ellis, known as Becky, had started a relationship and had a daughter, but it started to fall apart.
He was convicted of assaulting Becky in 2019 and a court made a restraining order against him.
The order was extended to an indefinite one in March 2021 but
Knowles was then charged with stalking her between March 3 and August 1, 2021. Prosecutor Anna Pope said the stalking had a “substantial and adverse” effect on Becky’s ability to do day-to-day activities.
He breached the order several times. The prosecutor said on one occasion Knowles got his friend’s girlfriend to contact Becky.
She hadn’t wanted to do it but Knowles had “pestered the life out of her”. Another time he set up 50 to 60 Instagram accounts to contact Becky, which she kept blocking.
And on a third occasion Knowles sent her flowers intending them to be dead, although he denied sending them. He also sent her a distressing letter from prison.
In what the court heard was a campaign of abuse, Knowles, of Church Street, Connah’s Quay, told his mother “I’ll make sure she f****** hangs herself” and that “he would bully her till she strings herself”.
In a victim statement, Becky’s mum
Linda Ellis said her daughter had been a “wonderful human being”.
She had lost her brother and sister but was resilient and applied to North Wales Police to become a PCSO to help others. She was in the process of completing her recruitment. But her relationship with Knowles, who had an “obsessive and abusive nature”, had a negative effect, said Mrs Ellis.
Becky was devastated when she found she was pregnant with Knowles’ child because “she felt she would never be truly free of Sam”.
“Sam worked relentlessly to break her down by shattering her confidence. He was obsessed with her and did everything he could to make her life a misery,” she added.
On the day she died, Mrs Ellis went to Becky’s home and found her in the hallway. She felt “shattered”, adding: “I know my heart will never be full again. However, Becky’s (two) children need me almost as much as I need them, and that’s what drives me to get up every morning.”
Mrs Ellis said she wonders what more she could have done to help Becky and feels “an overwhelming sense of guilt” if she herself experiences “the odd moment of joy or laughter”. Becky’s son is old enough to miss his mum and Mrs Ellis now sees “sadness in his eyes”.
Myles Wilson, defending, said Knowles apologises to Mrs Ellis for his behaviour. He had wanted a reconciliation, however “forlorn and naive” that might have been.
He said: “He knows that when [their daughter] gets older she will find out what happened and that’s something he feels ashamed about”.
Judge Rhys Rowlands said Becky had been “an extraordinarily vulnerable young woman who had been subjected to totally unwarranted and
rather sinister behaviour on the part of this defendant”.
He said he couldn’t show that Knowles caused Becky’s death on July 30, 2021. But he said it was “plain common sense” that he contributed in a “fairly substantial” way to how she saw herself at the end of July when she took that tragic step.
Jailing Knowles for stalking, he said there would be no separate penalty for two admitted charges of harassment by breaching a restraining order.
In March this year, a coroner at an inquest recorded Becky’s death as suicide. She said Becky had been “clearly well-loved and that she loved her children”.