A 71-year-old man who stalked a 10-year-old girl for three years – sending her messages in which he said he was drunk and loved her – has been jailed.
Michael Blanche was sentenced to 18 weeks by magistrates after also giving the girl specially-compiled picture montages of her, which the justices had previously said contained images they felt were “sexualised”.
The Pencoed grandfather had been found guilty on April 8 at Bridgend Magistrates’ Court of stalking the child, who cannot be identified, between November 26, 2012, and October 3, 2015.
He had denied the offence under the Protection from Harassment Act.
Bombarded her with 60 messages
At his trial magistrates were told Blanche, who runs a stall at carnivals and fairs making hand sculptures out of wax, bombarded his victim with Facebook friend requests and 60 messages.
Blanche also took pictures off her Facebook profile page without her permission and made them into montages set to music then gave them back to her.
The court heard he had also taken his own pictures of her with and without her knowledge and created a second Facebook identity of Mike Blank.
The story of Blanche's trial: Grandfather stalked schoolgirl for three years and sent her picture montages
All of the montages, which he had handed to his victim, now 13, on a memory stick last October, were set to music from the 1960s.
He claimed it was a 'friendship'
At his trial the magistrates singled out the use of one Beatles song called Run For Your Life, which contained the lyric: “Rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man.”
The court also heard that apart from replying to one or two Facebook messages and waving at Blanche in the street a couple of times his victim never reciprocated what Blanche claimed was “a friendship”.
The victim’s mother also messaged him to tell him to stop contacting her daughter and warned him verbally. She also reported him to Facebook.
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Richard Adamec, defending, told the sentencing hearing in Bridgend on Friday: “Clearly once he had his cards marked he should have desisted. He should’ve but he didn’t.
“He views this as a friendship and that’s how it basically came across and may be viewed as, save for the disparity in age of these two people.
'Posed no threat'
“She (his victim) was asked how she viewed those messages and she thought they were a bit odd, a bit weird, and, as I submitted to you at the time, what she ultimately said is she really didn’t take his messages that seriously and they didn’t bother her and those were her words.
“Whatever view you take of this none of those messages were sexualised, none of them were abusive – they may have been inappropriate in their tone but they were in no way threatening.
“You refer to a specific line in a song. There’s a clear implication there that he possibly meant to harm this child but there’s absolutely no evidence to support that at the end of the day.
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“There was absolutely no threat issued by this man.”
Magistrates’ chairman Linda James said: “We feel only a custodial sentence can be justified in this case.”
Justices also issued a restraining order preventing Blanche from contacting his victim or her mother. He was ordered to pay an £80 victim surcharge.
see-http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/grandfather-who-stalked-schoolgirl-three-11262552
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