A “vindictive” graphic designer from Northampton who was found with a 14-inch machete in his car has been jailed after he delivered fake business cards advertising “adult services”, which contained his ex-partner’s address.
Lee Childs, of Thomas Chapman Grove, Southbridge, was sentenced to five months in prison at Harrow Crown Court on Friday and was handed a five-year restraining order.
Childs was arrested in December 2012 after officers from Harrow CID and Northamptonshire Police searched his business premises in Northampton and his home address following allegations of harassment from his ex-partner.
Police say the victim, who is described as a professional business woman, contacted police in Harrow after discovering malicious business cards had been printed in her name containing her home address, phone number and photograph.
They advertised adult massage services and encouraged late-night visits to her home address.
The cards were also posted through her neighbours’ doors and placed in phone boxes near her home.
The victim began receiving “unnerving calls of an adult nature” and visits to her home, day and night from unknown men.
The cards were also sent to the headmistress of the school her children attended with an accompanying letter saying that they had been found attached to trees near the school.
Childs also sent emails and tried to contact the victim through various social networking sites, despite being asked not to, after she ended their two-year relationship in July 2012.
He also set up fake profiles on social networking sites using fictitious names in an attempt to contact her.
Childs also made a malicious report to the children’s charity the NSPCC, saying that the victim was a drug user, drank heavily, was unfit to be a mother. He told them she had gone on holiday leaving her three children home alone.
Police the allegations were “vindictive” and “completely untrue”.
When officers searched his property they seized computer equipment, as well as a 14-inch machete hidden in his car.
Childs was subsequently charged with the offences in April.
He was convicted of producing and distributing the offensive cards.
Detective Constable Janine Stevenson, who led the investigation, said: “This calculated and extremely vindictive campaign of harassment invented by Childs was relentless.
“The victim and her young children were all subjected to many months of worry and fearing for their personal safety. I am very pleased to see that justice has now been done and will hopefully be a deterrent to anybody else who decides to embark on this type of spiteful behaviour.”