Louise: Stalker’s left me and my daughter traumatised a year on
Man jailed for threats to TV host
A FORMER soldier who stalked exBBC presenter Louise Minchin and her daughter was jailed yesterday.
Carl Davies, 44, got two years and eight months for posting “intimidating” social media messages “intended to maximise fear and distress” to Ms Minchin and teenager Mia in July 2020.
In one message to the BBC Breakfast host, he said: “Move or you’re f***ed.”
In another – which also gave their home address and details of the cars in their driveway – he wrote: “Your daughter will definitely be raped.”
Commenting on one of Ms Minchin’s photos, he said: “You can see your garden from there”, showing he knew their address, the court heard.
Ms Minchin, 53, and her daughter said that the stalking had a “horrific, devastating and lasting impact”, the judge was told.
In a victim impact statement, she said: “We are both still traumatised.
“A year on we are still extra cautious, we still don’t feel safe and possibly never will. I couldn’t sleep, and would jump at the slightest noise. We had to make changes to our lives – where we walk, where we’d go for a run. We no longer felt safe.”
Passing sentence at Mold crown court in north Wales, judge Nicola Saffman said: “Clearly they would have been terrified, especially because it’s clear you knew where they lived.
“As a result they are both now hypervigilant, they still have a sense of deep distress and the family don’t feel safe.”
Davies, of Flint, north Wales, had been convicted in 2017 of stalking one-time
A year on we are still extra cautious. We don’t feel safe and possibly never will LOUISE MINCHIN IN VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
girlfriend Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts and in 2019 for biting his father on the arm, the court heard.
Lawyer Duncan Bould, mitigating, said Davies had PTSD while serving in Iraq and only had his condition fully recognised at a psychiatric examination to assist with sentencing.
The judge said: “I accept you are remorseful. I have also taken into account your PTSD.”
She recommended that he receive “psychiatric and psychological assistance and input” when he is released.
Ms Minchin, who recently appeared on I’m A Celebrity, later said: “The sentencing today of a man who made horrific threats online against my daughter and I marks the end of what has been a very distressing time.
“I hope it sends a clear message that people who make violent threats on social media can be found, prosecuted and can expect a prison sentence.”