EX-SQUADDIE’S CAMPAIGN OF STALKING AFTER SPLIT FROM WIFE
He threatened to break her legs and put her gran in hospital
FORMER soldier Jason Withers sent a series of threatening and abusive messages to his wife.
The 33-year-old was abusing alcohol and drugs and was unable to accept the breakdown of his marriage when he embarked on a campaign of stalking.
He bombarded his wife with hundreds of messages and posted unfounded claims about her on social media. He also threatened to hospitalise her grandma; take the children away from her, and said someone was going to break her legs.
Withers also impersonated a police officer to try to find out her whereabouts. Now Withers has been jailed for 27 months at Stoke-on-trent Crown Court.
Prosecutor Joshua Purser said Withers and his wife were together for 13 years and have three children together. He went to the family home on January 21 having stayed away for two nights.
Mr Purser said: “He was abusing drugs and demanded his wife get a car for him so he could leave the area as he was disqualified from driving. She refused but under pressure allowed him to use her car. He was stopped a short distance away and arrested.
“She wanted to finish the relationship and left the marital home with the children and went to her parents’ home in Oxfordshire. She did not want any contact from him.
“By January 25 there were about 30 calls and hundreds of messages via Whatsapp and text. The victim blocked the defendant who would then use a different number to contact her. She lists eight mobiles used and three email addresses.
“He accessed her Universal Credit account and posted she was working full-time. She had to contact the Job Centre to correct the information. She found it distressing and stressful.”
Mr Purser said: “On January 23 she received 25 voicemails. Some were apologetic, others were angry with threats to report her to social services.”
He also threatened to put her nan in hospital and said he had tracked her to Oxfordshire. And he posted on Facebook that she was a drug user.
The victim felt drained and did not feel safe to return home. On February 1 she received 100 messages from one number and 50 from another number. Two days later he impersonated a police officer and contacted her stepfather’s army employer and said he was harbouring someone who had stolen a vehicle.
On February 7 he contacted her and threatened he would never leave her alone. He used 14 different numbers to try and contact her.
Withers was arrested on February 16 on suspicion of breaching the non-molestation order but denied having received the order. The police decided to take no further action but personally served him with the order.
But the next day the victim received 145 no caller ID calls. She answered some and was met by silence.
The victim went to Spain on February 19 with the children. The next day she received a message which suggested Withers knew her exact location and had cancelled their passports. He was flying there and he would take the children from her. On February 23 she received notifications on her Facebook account that the FBI were investigating her.”
Withers, of Waterloo Road, Cobridge, pleaded guilty to stalking involving serious alarm or distress and breaching a non-molestation order.
Paul Cliff, mitigating, said Withers has spent nearly three months on remand in prison and has mental health problems and PTSD after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Cliff said: “It is clear at times, and before the marriage collapsed, there were periods where he was self-medicating with alcohol and drugs.
“He described having some form of mental breakdown at the end of his marriage. He struggled to accept it was over.”
He asked for the judge to consider suspending the sentence.
But Judge Graeme Smith said the shortest sentence he could pass was 27 months, which could not be suspended.
He said: “Your response to the breakdown of the marriage was extreme.” The judge made Withers the subject of a restraining order which prevents him contacting his victim for five years.