A litigant in person sent threatening messages to his ex-partner's solicitors using a fictional character named 'Jamie Gwenstefani', an ex tempore judgment in the Family Division has revealed.
In BB v CC Mrs Justice Arbuthnot found that Gwenstefani was a ‘figment of the father’s imagination’ who was used as a front for him to send abusive messages. Gwen Stefani is a well-known American singer-songwriter.
The father, a litigant in person, had applied for contact with his child, who is just under two years old. The matter was transferred to the High Court after he made complaints about the county court staff, the judge and the mother’s legal representatives.
Over the course of several months last year, the mother, her solicitors and some of her family received abusive and threatening communications, apparently from the litigant. A blind relative was sent pins in an envelope along with death threats, while on another occasion somebody wrote to the solicitors saying the father had died in a car crash.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot described a campaign of ‘extreme intimidation’, and a witness from the mother’s law firm recalled how frightening staff had found these threatening messages. The firm received an email with a screenshot of the mother’s dating profile along with a threatening message, as well as a message asking for her address in order to send a present to the child.
Each letter contained a similar level of threat to kidnap, rape, murder and dissolving bodies in acid.
Anonymous calls were received by the solicitors the day after court orders were served: the caller did not say anything but stayed on the line and heavy breathing could be heard.
The father’s case was that messages were written by his ‘misguided friend’ Mr Jamie Gwenstefani, who he said was a legal professional whom he had met in a mosque. This individual had purportedly taken over his correspondence and email addresses and the father had no knowledge of what he was doing. The father denied it was his handwriting on envelopes containing threatening messages, blaming 'Mr Gwenstefani' and another alias, referred to only as 'Mario'.
At one stage he even wrote to the mother’s solicitors stating that his friend ‘Jamie’ had taken conduct of the matter and blaming him for the threatening messages.
The judge said the mother’s evidence was credible and that these ‘graphic threats’ could only have been from someone with an axe to grind and knowledge of the mother’s family.
She said the father was ‘taking revenge’ on anyone associated with the mother and threatening those he thought were preventing contact with his child. This amounted to coercive behaviour.
A postscript to the written judgment reveals that following the ex tempore judgment the father admitted that 'Mr Gwenstefani' did not exist.
