A woman's run in with her 'insecure' ex partner made her suspicious and prompted her to get her care checked by a mechanic.
When the car was inspected, the mechanic found a phone sized tracking device had been placed there by Jason Durney. Liverpool Crown Court heard that 33-year-old Durney and the victim had been together for three and a half years before breaking up.
Following the split the woman became suspicious that Durney was following. She realised he must be electronically tracking her when he had turned up at a local Home Bargains store in Seacombe on June 13 last year just after she got there.
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Three days later she asked a mechanic to check her vehicle and was horrified when the mechanic told her that he had found a tracker on the driver’s side rear wheel of her car and she informed the police.
Recorder Jon Close told Durney on Tuesday: “It is deeply disturbing behaviour. It has a profound impact on anyone to find out they are being spied on in such a premeditated and sophisticated fashion. It is chilling.”
Durney, of Brighton Street, Egremont, Wirral, pleaded guilty to stalking between April 27 and June 23 last year. Recorder Close told him: “You struggled to accept her decision to cut ties and struggled to accept the relationship was over.
“Let me make it very clear - she owes you nothing, absolutely nothing. She does not owe you her time.”
He said that a pre-sentence report described him as “jealous and insecure” and exhibiting controlling behaviour. He added: “What is quite clear is that you have put your needs before hers.”
Recorder Close went on to tell him that he deserved to go to prison. He said: “This is serious criminality, it was determined, it was premeditated, it is chilling and you have heard the affect you had on your ex-partner. You chose to do that.”
But he said that if he jailed him he would be released after a few months and he decided - “only just” - that a suspended prison sentence “is the best way to protect both the victim and any other woman who has the misfortune to come across your path.”
He said he had taken into account that his two employees would lose their jobs if he was jailed and other people he helps who also suffer. Durney was sentenced to ten months imprisonment suspended for to years, ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work and ten days rehabilitation activities
The judge also ordered him to pay £1500 prosecution costs at the rate of £200 per month and imposed an indefinite restraining order to keep away from his victim and her home.
The court heard that Durney has previous convictions including assaults. He also received five years imprisonment for robbery in 2012
Brendan Carville, defending, said that the tracker had been fitted for ten days. He said that the ex-partner had made other complaints about the defendant but the prosecution had chosen not to pursue them.
He had worked at his lock up garage for six years after leaving jail and employs two people who would lose their jobs and income if he is jailed. Mr Carville explained that the defendant had been badly affected by losing his mum, his granddad - who had acted as his dad who left home when Durney was young - and an uncle in a short period of time before the offence.
He said: "He was physically and mentally distraught at the time and longed for some solace from his ex-partner but she wanted nothing to do with him.”
He said that Durney has shown genuine remorse and his successful business repairs high value cars. A nephew and another young man look up to him as a father and people he has helped speak highly of him.
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