Stalker wore fake baby bump as revenge for one-night stand
A WOMAN who wore a ‘baby bump’ and faked pregnancy to stalk a man after a one-night stand did it as revenge for being dumped, a court has heard.
Jaclyn McGowan, 36, kept up the bizarre pretence for nine months as she tried to dupe Jamie Aitken and his family.
Yesterday, at Perth Sheriff Court, McGowan’s solicitor said she had been angry about the way the one-night relationship had been ended by Mr Aitken, a 30-year-old landscape gardener, of Coupar Angus, Perthshire.
The court was told she had garnered pity from Mr Aitken’s parents but was almost rumbled when she was spotted looking ‘slim and not visibly pregnant’.
She bought a prosthetic baby bump and turned up looking ‘heavily pregnant’ days later.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said he considered the unusual offence to be at the lower end of what could be described as stalking and ordered her to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
Fiscal depute Tina Dickie said: ‘Jamie Aitken said the messages and whole situation were causing disruption to him and his family and he stated he felt like she was turning his family against him.’
She added: ‘The mother states that she and her husband were concerned at first but began to feel excited at the prospect of having a grandchild.’
Wendy Aitken told police: ‘She was so convincing I believed her that Jamie was not being supportive and ended up feeling very sorry for her and angry at Jamie.’
Mrs Dickie told the court that
McGowan and Mr Aitken had spent a single drunken night in a hotel after meeting on the dating site Tinder.
She said: ‘The accused asked Mr Aitken to meet up again. However, he declined.’
The fake pregnancy was exposed after the due date came and went with no birth. McGowan confessed to the police.
The fiscal added: ‘She did not give a reason other than that she wanted to hurt Jamie Aitken for how the relationship ended.’
She admitted that between June 1, 2019 and February 29 last year she engaged in conduct which caused fear or alarm to a man and members of his family.
McGowan, from Blairgowrie,
Perthshire, admitted stalking Mr Aitken by pretending she was pregnant with his child.
She sent him a picture of a cot and requested he give her £300 to pay for it, and advised him that she had miscarriages.
McGowan sent him numerous messages to say he would play no part in her baby’s life and contacted his mother.
She told Mrs Aitken that she was pregnant with her grandchild and sent her scan photos and details of fictitious pregnancyrelated appointments.
Mike Tavendale, defending, told the court yesterday McGowan got ‘caught up in the lie’.
The court was told the student nurse was likely to lose her job.
‘Turning his family against him’