Fugitive cyber-stalker arrested in London
/v3-uk/news/1980728/fugitive-cyber-stalker-arrested-london
08 Jun 2007, Matt Chapman , V3
A convicted cyber-stalker who has been on the run for two months was arrested this week after being tracked to a cyber-café in London's Brick Lane.
Felicity Jane Lowde from Oxford was convicted in her absence by Stratford Magistrate's Court in April this year after harassing blogger Rachel North.
North was a survivor of the London bombings in July 2005, and Lowde first started posting comments on her blog in January 2006.
Lowde claimed that North was exploiting her situation for financial gain and wrongly accused her of abandoning those who had died.
Lowde was traced after posting comments on The Oxford Mail's website and being contacted by another internet user, following a campaign to find her led by other bloggers.
"Following tip-offs from members of the public who were aware of the Find the Stalker blogger campaign, Felicity Jane Lowde was arrested in a cyber-café in Brick Lane on 6 June and taken into police custody overnight," said North on her blog.
"For me, I don't feel like dancing. I am just thankful this is over (or almost over, as I am sure Lowde will appeal her conviction, and her sentence too, when she is sentenced)."
Lowde was refused bail and will be remanded in custody until 28 June pending psychiatric and pre-sentence reports.
The woman faces a maximum jail sentence of six months or a fine of up to £5,000.
Do you agree?
simple to see what crime it is
rrosty, it's easy to see what her crime is. try it yourself (or rather, don't).
print out some of the things she has emailed to rachel, then go and say (or rather, shout) them to anther human being in person, over and over again, day in, day out. that would be illegal, not "free speech" at all. she has form on this, as long as your arm.
Posted by David M, 12 Jun 2007
convicted for what?
I didn't quite get what was the crime? her opinion, even hostile and maybe even wrong, about another blogger? how about free speech?
Posted by rrosty, 11 Jun 2007
Convicted of NON-APPEARANCE
Felicity Lowde was convicted of NON-APPEARANCE at a trial in the small claims magistrates court, having produced a medical certificate in lieu. The claimant was Rachel McFadyen, whose father verbally abused Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary in the UK, in a fracas about his daughter, Rachel. Most of the details surrounding this case are at
www.fjlathome.blogspot.com
Rachel McFadyen?s commenters are Tory political activists and demonstrators as is evidenced by the hate blogs of
www.notsaussure.wordpress.com
www.iznewmania.blogspot.com
(Paul Newman, a Tory Councillor on Islington Council)
www.devilskitchen.me.uk
http://defendingtheblog.blogspot.com/
which encompasses
Guido Fawkes, aka. Paul Staines Tim Ireland and a host of astroturfers posting identical messages of hate.
Posted by GuidoFaukes, 12 Jun 2007
Disturbing Devolopment?
Ms. Lowde was punished not because of anything she did but because of who her 'victim' was. That should worry anyone who cares about free speech and equality before the law.
Posted by BellaCat, 10 Jul 2007
Previous form for Lowde
Archives of local papers tell a different story...Lowde has previous form
STORY ONE: ( FROM 1999)
STUDENT Felicity Lowde, who was said to have hired a private detective to intimidate her former lover, walked free from court yesterday.
The 33-year-old, of Jackson Road, North Oxford, was cleared of perverting the course of justice after a three- day trial at Oxford Crown Court.
It was claimed that Ms Lowde was said to have offered to pay the detective £500 to launch an elaborate ?sting? operation against Dr Dov Shekel, including sending two men to bug the doctor?s home and impersonate police officers.
Her aim, the jury heard, was to persuade Dr Shekel to drop harassment charges after he claimed she bombarded him with up to 200 telephone calls in five days in an effort to win him back.
The Oxford Brookes University student was said to have
offered to pay £250 up front and a further £250 if the intimidation was successful.
Police heard of Ms Lowde?s alleged plan when the private detective, who is also a police informant and goes by the alias of Reggie Kray, told officers. She was arrested and charged in May last year.
Miss Sandra Stanfield, prosecuting, said Lowde originally made her approach to the private detective to stop the harassment case coming to court.
She said that after the couple?s relationship had broken down Lowde had started to bombard Dr Shekel, his family and his friends with phone calls.
Miss Stanfield added: ?Miss Lowde decided to set out to try to find a way to stop the court case. She approached a private detective but he turned out to be a regular police informant and, surprise, surprise, told the police.?
Giving evidence, the private detective, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said:
?The defendant gave me a resume of her problems that she had with a gentleman and that she had harassed him, but believed he was obsessional about her. I gave her an outline of the sort of thing we could do.?
But, the court heard, the
investigator failed to hand tapes of telephone calls made by Felicity Lowde to him over to police.
Mr Lee Masters, defending, said: ?Miss Lowde did not want anything to do with perverting the course of justice or anything unlawful. She did not want the witness intimidated in any shape or form.?
He added that the private detective had deliberately left out passages of the taped calls where Lowde said she did not want Dr Shekel approached in any way.
The private detective denied he had tampered with the tapes saying the police had been negligent in not asking for a proper record of the telephone conversations.
The detective went on to describe to the court the nature of his work. This included, he said, gaining evidence to convict alleged contract killers.
STORY TWO - FROM 2000
A woman convicted of harassing her former boyfriend bombarded his father with nuisance calls, a court was told.
Felicity Lowde, 34, of Jackson Road, Cutteslowe, Oxford, started making the calls the day she lost an appeal against her conviction for harassing former boyfriend Dr Dov Stekel.
Oxford magistrates made an order on November 22, 1999, that she should not contact Dr Stekel, or his father Ronnie Stekel, after she was convicted of harassment in October 1999. She also received a three-month suspended jail sentence.
But Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday she called Ronnie Stekel's home numerous times between April 18 and 25 this year.
Lowde denies a charge of breaching an order made under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997. Ronnie Stekel, a chartered accountant, told the court: "There were silent calls. There were 'burp calls' when I would answer the phone, a burp would come down the phone and the phone would be put down."
He said he logged 15 to 20 calls on April 18, and took the phone off the hook when they continued on April 23 and 24. He then changed the phone number of his home.
The court heard a recording of a message allegedly left on his answer phone by Lowde during this period.
The message said: "This is Dr Stekel's friend. Please stop leaving pornographic material on people's e-mails because it is not appreciated."
Lowde accepted it was her voice on the tape - but said she had not contacted Mr Stekel at the time alleged.
She said Dr Stekel and two of his friends had made "mocking and abusive" telephone calls in 1998 and she had also received pornographic e-mails from them.
Nichola Hatcher, defending, said the message may have been an old recording played down the line by Dr Stekel or one of his friends to encourage Mr Stekel to go to the police.
She said when the police seized Lowde's phone and mobile phone from her home they showed no evidence of calls to Mr Stekel's home number. She said just eight calls made to the Stekel household between April 19 and April 23 could be traced to a payphone near Lowde's home.
The trial continues.
Posted by A_Swilman, 03 Sep 2007
not quite true, bellacat
Miss Lowde has 2 previous convictions for harassment, ( her ex boyfriend and his father). She appealed both of her convictions and lost, both times. Lowde is currently bound by an ASBO which protects 16 other victims, which should quash Bellacat's nonsense about her being punished because of 'who her victim is'.
She was punished for conducting a hate campaign which went on for over a year
Posted by DavidM, 14 Oct 2007