Moonpig menace
Stalker used customised cards website to harass ex-girlfriend
A BUSINESSWOMAN took out a restraining order against an obsessed former boyfriend after he sent her creepy personalised messages using online greeting card service Moonpig.
Alicia Renoso, 44, received a series of disturbing notes over seven months after splitting with former chartered surveyor Andrew Wallace, a court heard.
The 50-year-old used the popular website to create cards which he would then pester Miss Renoso with, in an attempt to woo her back.
The mother-of-one, who runs a mobile hairdressing business, received so many Moonpig cards she contacted the company to prevent him sending anything else to her address. Wallace was also warned about his behaviour by police, but he ignored this and even hand-delivered some of the cards to her home.
In one sinister card he said her father’s grave was his ‘favourite place to visit’ – claiming it was installed as a destination on his satnav.
In a statement Miss Renoso, from Stalybridge, near Manchester, said she had not wanted to ‘rush into things with Andrew’ after they met through an online dating site last year.
She said their relationship ended after Wallace, from Knutsford, Cheshire, made a video call to her daughter in which he made comments which she found ‘insulting’.
Miss Renoso added: ‘When I challenged him, he said that he was brain damaged. Andrew and I had a conversation shortly afterwards and this is where I explained that I did not want to continue the relationship.’ Danielle Allison, prosecuting, told Tameside magistrates that following the break-up, Wallace began contacting her through Facebook.
She then blocked him on social media and told police, and on July 29 last year an officer informed her that Wallace had been issued with a Police Information Notice warning him against further contact.
But then in August and October he sent her two personalised cards via Moonpig. com. ‘In December, he sent her another card saying that her late father’s grave was one of his favourite places and marked on his phone’s satnav, and that he was going to visit,’ Miss Allison said.
He continued sending cards, two of which arrived without postage stamps ‘which insinuates that he had come to the address – something that she finds most disturbing’, the lawyer added.
Miss Renoso said she had hoped the police warning ‘would be a sufficient deterrent but he seems to be ignoring it’.
She reported him to police again after he sent her a Valentine’s card.
She added: ‘I wish Andrew would stop using my address as a means of communication. I feel like he has used the last several months to try to manipulate me into getting back with him.
‘My life is being affected and I’m filled with fear and intimidation.’
Wallace pleaded guilty to harassing Miss Renoso between July 2017 and February 2018 and was banned from contacting her and her daughter for 18 months.
He was also electronically tagged and given an eight-week curfew. The court heard Wallace suffered a series of strokes eight years ago causing brain disease cerebral vasculitis.
He had previously been a chartered surveyor but had to quit his job and now lived off disability benefits.
‘Filled with fear and intimidation’