A victim of Alex Belfield, described as the "Jimmy Savile of trolling", has recounted the devastating impact of Belfield's campaign of stalking.
Former BBC local radio DJ Belfield was handed more than five years in prison after he was found guilty of stalking TV presenter Jeremy Vine and others, including videographer Ben Hewis.
Ben described in his victim statement how he was left living in fear by Belfield, 42, who used his son's picture on his YouTube account and contacted his pregnant wife.
Belfield was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for stalking Ben, with the videographer telling his Twitter followers he's "thrilled justice has been served", and shared his victim personal statement on the site.
Victim personal statements are presented to the court, and Ben's detailed the relentless and cruel campaign he was subjected to by Belfield.
The dad said: "For almost three years I’ve been subjected to the most painfully personal attacks.
"Belfield has waged a relentless, multi-pronged intimidation and harassment campaign that has left me psychologically and emotionally drained of the vim and vigour that defined my character before."
Ben said that Belfield used his wife and children as a weapon to blackmail and intimidate him.
He said that in nearly 100 emails Belfield threatened him with rising court costs, which now appear to have been fabricated, and regularly told him he'd lose his family home.
Multiple times, Belfield said he had hired solicitors or private investigators to discover where Ben lived.
"In multiple videos published on his YouTube channel he stole my family photos and used them alongside his vile rants and assaults on my character, calling me a bad parent for not giving into his intimidation, promising to ‘hound’ me for the rest of my life," Ben recounted.
He went on: "In one video he wrote liar across my two year old son’s face and used that as a thumbnail on a video seen by hundreds of thousands of people. The photos he used were of some of the happiest moments of my life - my son’s christening, our first family holiday."
Ben had to keep watching the videos in order to find specific time stamps for his complaints to YouTube to get the clips taken down.
Blocking Belfield was useless he said, as the stalker would find new ways to get at him, and would also ask his followers to contact Ben- with them sending threatening tweets on multiple occasions.
Ben chose not to tell his pregnant wife about Belfield's actions, as he feared the stress could lead to complications or even a miscarriage.
He told how Belfield contacted his pregnant wife on Facebook, attaching an image of the couple's baby scan.
Belfield also tweeted lies to his Ben's clients, he said, "painting me out to be a liar and a criminal to people I’ve spent years developing a relationship with."
As the statement neared to an end, Ben said: "Online he was able to build a mob of followers and instruct them to also harass me, many anonymously.
"Online he still caused me to have panic attacks. Online he still made me feel isolated, wracked with guilt and fear and pain."
During the trial at Nottingham Crown Court, Jeremy gave evidence, saying: “This is not a regular troll here. This is the Jimmy Savile of trolling.”
BBC Radio Northampton presenter Bernie Keith was left feeling suicidal by a “tsunami of hate”, jurors heard.
The court heard that Belfield started stalking Ben after he tweeted disgust at one of his YouTube videos.
Belfield was found guilty by the jury of stalking to cause serious alarm or distress to Bernie Keith and Ben, and “simple” stalking in relation to Jeremy and theatre blogger Philip Dehany.
He was handed a 13-week sentence for stalking Jeremy alongside a consecutive 13 weeks for stalking blogger Dehany.
The YouTuber was also handed two-and-half years for the charge related to Bernie.
The four charges were committed between 2012 and 2021.
He was found not guilty of stalking charges in relation to the BBC’s former head of North Rozina Breen, former BBC Radio Leeds presenters Liz Green and Stephanie Hirst, and BBC worker Helen Thomas.
