Civil servant stalker who changed name to victim’s and targeted him at Whitehall
A CIVIL servant who camped out in Whitehall with a placard declaring her love for a former colleague was yesterday found guilty of stalking.
Economist Ray Israel-Wilkinson, 33, became obsessed with Alex Wilkinson after working with him.
A court heard she set up Twitter accounts claiming Uk intelligence agency GCHQ was trying to stop them being together. One account had links to over 100 love songs dedicated to him.
Even after being arrested, she continued to sit outside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in London – breaching bail conditions – and emailed him when she was sectioned in a psychiatric hospital. Israel-Wilkinson denied stalking last year but was convicted in her absence after she failed to attend Westminster Magis- trates Court yesterday. A warrant was issued for her arrest.
The economist sat outside the department’s building with a home-made placard that proclaimed: ‘This is not a protest. Waiting for my Wilko.’
Prosecutor Jennifer Gatland said: ‘This caused significant distress for Mr Wilkinson who had to change his routine, entrances and so forth.’
She added: ‘The defendant has also created social media pages claiming they are married and declaring her love for him. It seems she also changed her name from Rayner Sultan to Ray Israel-Wilkinson to give the impression they are married.’
Israel-Wilkinson, of Milton keynes, Buckinghamshire, referred to herself as ‘Wilko’s Ray’ on her Twitter profile where she described him as her ‘king’. Deputy director of analysis Mr Wilkinson, who until last month had a senior role in the department’s response to Covid, described how the nightmare began after she left her role and insisted on meeting him face to face.
He said: ‘I wasn’t comfortable because we didn’t have any meaningful relationship. She is a former colleague.’ He decided to look her up online and found a Twitter page with 5,000 followers where she made the claim about GCHQ intervening in their relationship.
The biography on the account states: ‘Please help my @alexwilko85 contact me. He is forced by evil souls to ostracise me. He loves me as much as I love him.’ A second Twitter account had a pinned tweet of 104 love songs. Other accounts used for her obsession included LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Mr Wilkinson, of Camberwell, south London, struggled to talk as he described his ordeal, which included receiving emails in which Israel-Wilkinson claimed she was homeless and was being assaulted in train stations. He said: ‘It’s difficult to see someone who is suffering and associating that with you and you can’t really do anything to help them.’
Israel-Wilkinson was arrested for harassment but ignored bail conditions to continue waiting outside the department building. She was sectioned in August 2021 but emailed Mr Wilkinson from hospital to claim she was being restrained and injected with drugs because she is an ex-Muslim.
District Judge Timothy Godfrey said her conviction was based on an ‘over-abundance of evidence’, adding: ‘It is apparent that she does not dispute the prosecution evidence nor could she realistically do so.
‘Her case is that her actions were not unreasonable, not unwelcome, and that Mr Wilkinson had complained about her actions only by pressure from the HR department at DCMS. I comprehensively reject that case.’
Issuing an arrest warrant, Judge Godfrey added that Mr Wilkinson had shown concern for Israel-Wilkinson’s welfare and mental health but her stalking behaviour had ground him down and ‘had an impact on him emotionally’.
‘He loves me as much as I love him’