Stalker who terrified TV star Lampard avoids going to jail
Wrote a letter to Lampard’s dog
CHRISTINE Lampard’s stalker avoided prison yesterday despite a campaign of harassment which made the TV presenter too scared to leave her house.
Christof King, 39, from Brent, north-west London, appeared in court in May, when he admitted stalking the Northern Irish broadcaster.
However, he repeatedly disputed sending chilling online messages to the wife of former England and Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard.
But yesterday King was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for two years, for a threeyear onslaught of disturbing tweets and letters, and even turning up at Mrs Lampard’s £11million (€12.3million) home – leaving the 39-year-old hiding in a bedroom with her housekeeper.
At one stage, when she gave evidence in court, Ms Lampard did so from behind a curtain so she did not have to come face-toface with her stalker.
In June, Judge Robin Johnson ruled that King had been behind a series of sinister tweets sent to Mrs Lampard.
Sentencing King yesterday, Judge Johnson said: ‘Those in the public eye are used to receiving contact from strangers. But they, like anyone else, are entitled to protection from the law when some contact moves from simply irritation to being criminal.
‘You are responsible for sending her very nasty communications which would have upset anyone, and aggravated that offending by visiting her home address.’
After King had been sentenced, Kerry Lingard, from the UK’s prosecution service, said: ‘Christof King’s delusional beliefs caused his victim to fear for her personal safety and that of her family and we would like to thank her for helping to bring him to justice.’
During King’s campaign of harassment, which took place between January 2015 and October 2017, the court heard how he sent a tweet to Mrs Lampard saying: ‘I can hear the scratch of nails as I sharpen them ahead of your crucifixion.’
Another added: ‘I am planning the words that will go on your gravestone.’ The ‘bizarre’ behaviour from King even saw him write a letter to Mrs Lampard’s dog Minnie, in which he said he felt they had ‘developed a special bond’.
When she gave evidence, Mrs Lampard told how she started to notice large amounts of tweets from King to her in late 2015. She said at first the posts were ‘incoherent waffle’ but they soon became ‘sinister’ and ‘dark’. ‘The tweets were so disturbing, to the extent that I showed it to my husband as well and he shared my concerns,’ she told the court.
Mrs Lampard, who is expecting her first child with her husband, said her biggest fear was that as she worked on live TV, it was not too difficult to figure out when she would be leaving her workplace.
The presenter said she felt ‘very uneasy’ about receiving letters from King, ‘including one written to my dog’, adding: ‘It was this sense that he felt a certain destiny to talk to me which is clearly not normal.’
Mrs Lampard and her husband were not in court for the sentencing.
John Oliver, defending, said his client had ‘received the message loud and clear’ and that he had ‘no desire’ to contact the family.
King, who suffers from a ‘delusional disorder’, was also given an indefinite restraining order from the Lampards and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.