An obsessed ex-husband has been jailed after he was caught watching his former wife’s videos on TikTok.
According to Mail Online, Paul Belton stalked his former wife of 18 years, Amy, since their split in 2021 to the point where he was made the subject of a Stalking Protection Order.
This banned him from communicating with her in any way, including looking at her social media accounts.
However, the stalker couldn’t stop and in August last year, he watched videos which she had posted on her TikTok account.
The setting on her account meant that Amy, 37, from Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, received a notification from the platform to tell her Belton had viewed her content and he was arrested.
Sentencing Belton at Teesside Magistrates Court for 32 weeks on Thursday, District Judge Marie Mallon said it was not the way he had contacted his ex-wife that was important.
She said: ‘I can’t stress enough, you are subject to this order for a long time and failure to comply will result in a longer sentence.
‘It is not down to the nature of the contact, it’s the fact that you continue to contact her and the psychological impact of that contact on her. You must cease all contact.’
Tokeer Amin, mitigating, said her client ‘fully accepts the court’s findings’.
After the hearing, the mum-of-four said that Belton had methodically gone through each of her TikTok videos.
She said: ‘The fact he has been jailed gives me a few weeks of freedom from him. I hope it gives him time to reflect and not carry on with his behaviour.
‘The psychological impact is the worst part, not knowing when he is going to contact me or if he’s going to turn up. It makes me want to seclude myself away.
‘He needs to realise he cannot get away with it and he’ll go to jail if he doesn’t leave me alone.
‘Since he’s been in prison on remand leading up to the case I have been able to live my life like a regular person without looking over my shoulder.
‘I hope the time in jail will see him change. He’s not the man I married all those years ago and he’s not the man I met all those years ago.’
Belton was prosecuted by Cleveland Police, which has the second-highest stalking rate in England and Wales by head of population.
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Baker said the force is determined to tackle the rising tide of cyberstalking.
He said: ‘Cyber and digital stalking is on the increase all the time, people are now able to stalk individuals they don’t even know.
‘In this case, they had been married for 18 years before they separated but it can be done remotely from anywhere in the world using digital devices.
‘We are seeing more and more of this playing out in our communities.
‘The message we want to send out is ‘we will be proactive, we will arrest you, we will take action.’
He warned offenders not to fool themselves into believing social media stalking is a minor offence.
Mr Baker added: ‘Do not think this is a low-level way of traumatising or tormenting an ex-partner, that it is somehow humorous.
‘It causes significant mental and psychological trauma to victims, it ruins their day-to-day lives and it is an incredibly intrusive type of offending.’
