Former Tory councillor guilty of stalking ex-wife

A former Tory councillor followed his ex-wife in a Porsche Cayenne during a campaign of stalking after she left him, a court heard.

Behind the closed doors of their home in Poole, Dorset, seemingly successful businessman Anthony De Havilland was a dominating and possessive husband to his then wife Simone Jackson, a court heard.

The former Conservative councillor, who once had the personalised number plate of “7ORY”, was said to have controlled his wife’s finances and isolated her from her friends and family.

When Miss Jackson, 33, finally left the 54-year-old, he refused to let her “get away from him”.

He instilled “a genuine sense of fear” in her by “bombarding” her with phone calls and WhatsApp messages and “tracking her movements”.

The court was told De Havilland called Miss Jackson 120 times in the space of a few hours.

Miss Jackson said that she got a sense that she was being watched and followed.

On June 7 last year she had the first of several encounters with her ex.

She had been walking by herself along the edge of Poole Harbour at Sandbanks and was heading back to her Range Rover when she said De Havilland “jumped out” in front of her.

She said: “He started banging on the windscreen and I locked the doors.

“As I drove away I had to swerve to avoid him and then saw him run to his Porsche and start following me. I drove to the police station and I was on the phone to the police the whole time, adrenaline through the roof, shaking and scared.

“This was at 9.30pm and I stayed in the police station until 4am because I just didn’t feel safe to leave.”

On another occasion he spotted her outside the Tesco Express store in Sandbanks with a friend.

He told her to smile and took a snap of the pair before sending her a cruel photo message telling her she looked “grim, miserable and vacant” in the picture.

De Havilland was said to have sent a chill down Miss Jackson’s spine by sending her a photo of another friend’s property she was house sitting for at the time.

He messaged: “I am outside the flat. It has come to this.”

De Havilland wrongly feared Miss Jackson was having an affair with a new potential landlord and so emailed him to “torpedo” and “put the kibosh” on her plans of moving into a flat.

He then messaged Miss Jackson, telling her “I am sure he fancied you”, and followed it with a cruel jibe that she would “probably get rent free after the first month”.

He denied the offences and claimed his ex-wife had been stalking him.

When he followed her to a nail salon on another occasion, he claimed she was aware of his morning routine of visiting a gym and then a coffee shop nearby and so knew he would be there.

But magistrates in Poole rejected his version of events after being satisfied that De Havilland had been unable to accept his marriage was over.

He was found guilty of stalking between May 15 and June 17 last year and will be sentenced next month.

De Havilland used to go by his birth name of Tony Ramsden and once served on Bournemouth council.

In 2013 the planning agent was jailed for 10 months for dishonesty offences. He had obtained a £25,000 loan from a former business partner without declaring his bankruptcy status.

He reinvented himself as Anthony De Havilland after he was released from prison.

In finding De Havilland guilty of stalking, district judge Orla Austin said: “I am satisfied that Simone Jackson was a credible witness.

“Mr De Havilland gave evidence in a way that suggested to me that he was unable to accept that the relationship was over and that he turned up where she would be and he bombarded her with messages.

“It was harassment.”

Miss Jackson said: “The verdict was a massive relief. For my own sanity I needed the legal system to believe in me and give me justice.”