‘Poisonous’ liar faked web threats from her ex-lover
Innocent man was arrested SIX times
AN innocent man was wrongly arrested six times after his ‘poisonous’ ex-girlfriend created up to 30 Instagram accounts to make it appear he was threatening her.
louis Jolly, 22, spent 81 hours in custody, was tagged and lost his job after Courtney Ireland-Ainsworth, 20, told police he threatened to stab her.
She even sent detectives a photo of what she claimed was a scar to her chest caused by Mr Jolly wounding her with a knife.
unable to prove her claims were malicious lies, Mr Jolly said he ended up feeling ‘like life wasn’t worth living’ and that ‘I’d be better off dead’.
parcel delivery firm worker Ireland-Ainsworth, who was a teenager when she committed the offence, has now been sentenced to ten months in youth custody after admitting perverting the course of justice.
liverpool Crown Court heard her ‘web of poisonous deceit’ was only exposed when Instagram bosses eventually told police the profiles were linked to her own email accounts and computer addresses.
The judge, Recorder Ian harris, said she had caused ‘untold emotional harm to a completely innocent man’.
Bricklayer Mr Jolly said the pair were together for two years before splitting up on ‘oK terms’ in 2019. Ireland-Ainsworth got a new boyfriend but began targeting her ex with ‘malevolent lies’, the court was told.
She created up to 30 false Instagram profiles, then told police Mr Jolly was behind the ‘vile’ messages.
She reported him for supposedly warning: ‘She is getting a f ****** blade in her chest.’
In total, she made ten police statements claiming her ex was harassing and stalking her over a five-month period in 2020. That led to him being arrested six times despite insisting he had done nothing wrong.
Detectives made a request for data from Facebook, which owns Instagram, but this ‘took some time to be released’.
Meanwhile, Mr Jolly, of Runcorn, Cheshire, was charged with assault and stalking.
But when detectives finally received the data Ireland-Ainsworth was arrested. Charges against Mr Jolly were dropped. Jim Smith, defending, said she had been diagnosed with a ‘complex’ stress disorder linked to a childhood ‘severe trauma’.
Ireland-Ainsworth, of Runcorn, wept in the dock as the judge handed out the custodial sentence along with a ten-year restraining order.
In a statement, Mr Jolly said: ‘I felt powerless and didn’t know how to protect myself from these allegations.’
Cheshire police last night said they had apologised to Mr Jolly after receiving a complaint.
‘I didn’t know how to protect myself’