An Edinburgh student has bravely spoken of the 'hell' she went through dealing with her ex boyfriend.
Ally Dunne, 20, a student at Edinburgh Napier, was just 18 when she moved to the capital for university and took a part time job at a local supermarket.
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While working at the store, an employee double her age befriended her and instigated a romantic relationship. She now says she can see how he manipulated her and exploited her past trauma.
Ally was 19, Stephen was 39. After they broke up and Ally cut off contact he began to harass the teen. Over time his behaviour grew worse, drawing pictures of Ally and sharing them on social media, messaging her friends after she had blocked him and sending flowers.
The now 40-year-old hung around in a park five minutes from her house and posted pictures of him there online despite living 14 miles away. He also got involved with her university work. He eventually pleaded guilty to harassment and was given a two-year harassment order.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live about the horrendous experience Ally said: "After moving to Edinburgh I had to find a new job, and got one at Tesco Musselburgh working in the click and collect department.
"I met Stephen in 2020 when he was a delivery driver for the company, then he was moved into my department. Things were fine at first he was quite chatty, and he was great for the job, stronger than me and helpful for carrying orders.
"He got on with everyone until about a month in, then problems were constantly cropping up due to inappropriate behaviour to female co-workers. There were lots of complaints and he got put on a final warning.
"Looking back he was very manipulative to all of the girls that made allegations and made out we were lying. At that point I was really struggling with my mental health and not in a good place which made me easy to manipulate.
"He would do one thing, lie about what happened then delete his social media so he could pretend it never happened and he often did this. There were lots of arguments and the relationship went downhill. I tried to leave him a couple of times but he would spread rumours and threaten to tell my work colleagues things forcing me to stay."
Ally finally managed to break up with Stephen but this was just the beginning of the nightmare ahead. She explained: "I eventually broke up with him, the overall atmosphere was not great there were constant arguments and rumours that Stephen would bring other people into.
"When I left the job I cut off contact all together, I sent a text being very clear telling him not to contact me. He had made fake accounts to stalk my social media to find out information about my life.
"Things went to hell after this, it was absolutely horrific. He started to upload videos wearing a mask saying threatening things and became very hostile. At the lowest points of our relationship he threatened to crash the car with both of us in it so I was scared about what he might do."
Ally says the 39-year-old harassed the then teenager across social media, invading every area of her personal life from trying to find out information from her friends to tracking what she was doing at university - and even going to her hometown and old work to try to gain knowledge about her.
She said: "He started posting open letters on Reddit and on every other social media, this was within days of cutting off contact. Then I started getting text messages from him and he started contacting my friends. I was having fake allegations posted about me online and my personal details so I would get hate from strangers."
After the threatening videos and feeling deeply unsettled the then 19-year-old had contacted the police but the process wasn’t easy and she had to consistently report the incidents.
She said: "I had already been in contact with police because the TikTok videos had been threatening and police told me to take it down a civil route, I text him to warn him if he continued this is what I would do.
"He was spamming me with phone calls, some saying he missed me and others asking me to contact him. With the online stuff it was really hard to prove, and he quickly realised he could harass me anyway he wanted online.
"It had been 22 days since I cut off contact and already he had made three different accounts on multiple sites all with subtle details so I could tell it was him that were following me and then he started to send messages from these saying I was a horrible person."
After attempting to go down a civil route the student eventually made some progress with the case but the resolution didn’t last long. She said: "It just got a lot so I finally had my meeting with the solicitor and she sent a letter of notice, after this he calmed down for around a month before it started again.
"I was going back and forth to the police about the harassment and it had been months later, I was checking his social media to see what intrusive information he was posting and saw he was threatening to kill himself and trying to use that to emotionally manipulate me.
"In November I received a bunch of roses and a card asking me to contact him which I also took to the police, but it still continued. He started posting drawings of me on his Twitter and Instagram some of the pictures were from my social media which he had downloaded and drawn.
"It was an ongoing battle with the police they just kept telling me to go private on social media but it didn’t matter he always found a way."
The situation got really extreme when the 39-year-old began to visit the student's hometown. Ally explained: "He went to my home town of Dunfermline and went to my first job at a mini golf centre and he had been asking things about me. It was horrible and so intrusive.
"It was my social media, my journalism online, my past, my friends he was contacting everyone trying to get any information he could."
This was the final straw, Ally said: "In December he sent another card with his number in it and I went back to the police again and they collected lots of information and took him in for questioning. This is when I was put in contact with Women’s Aid and it was taken to court then he pleaded guilty to harassment.
"He was banned from parking on my street, had been fined and couldn’t contact me. It had been four months of hell and there was nothing stopping him.
"It was bliss for a couple of months but then one of his old accounts was viewing my Instagram story and coming to my university.
"I stopped wearing make-up and dressing how I wanted while I was with him because he would use it to accuse me of flirting with other guys and girls and so Stephen would stop commenting on my body in the work place.
"I didn't wear it for months because he had conditioned me to be scared it was an invitation to be hit on which sounds so stupid now but I spent so long stuck like this then finally started wearing it again."
Unfortunately as soon as Ally took back some power after the controlling relationship things started to take a turn for the worse.
She said: "I posted about it on social media and anonymous comments from strange accounts started again. I had just started to take my power back. So I shared my story and named and shamed him, I wanted to make others aware so I put it into a video.
"I wanted to let my classmates and friends know that I wasn’t going to be hiding anymore. I was so scared that I was going to become a statistic and it was going to become violent because I couldn’t predict his behaviour. I was scared to pick up the post because I didn’t know what he would send next.
"I couldn’t go outside, I just wanted to go out for a run and enjoy myself but he would wait in the areas where I lived and upload pictures of it online. I refused to leave my university flat because there were three locked doors and it was the only place I felt safe.
"There are so many places that are open access but you don't think about this until you are online, I was severely anxious and I thought I was going to die.
"There days where I hadn’t slept for three days, it was making me physically ill. It feels like it was ages ago now even though it was only a year.
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"At the worst points I thought it would be better to be dead than to deal with it, he used every vulnerability against me. I was now with a man that I loved but there was still this monster who could turn my life upside down. I had been begging for help and I was just at my wits end."
“It felt like I had to prove everything to everyone that I wasn't going insane or exaggerated it, We were together for less than a year and it was so on and off, realistically we were only together for a few months.
Ally's advice to others who might be in a similar situation is: "Document absolutely everything it can be embarrassing to open up about what has been going on but its important to keep reporting it and get help, I was apprehensive about naming him but the Women's Aid's advice was really helpful if I can reach just one other person in the same situation and help then it is worth it."
Get help and support
All forms of domestic abuse are not acceptable in any situation.
If you’re experiencing domestic abuse and feel frightened of, or controlled by, a partner, an ex-partner or family member, it’s important to remember that it’s not your fault and there is no shame in seeking help.
It may seem like a difficult step to take, but there is support available and #YouAreNot Alone.
Free, confidential support and advice is available to victims and their concerned family members or friends, 24 hours a day. You can find out more here.
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