Sheffield woman's 'never ending' online harassment left victims living in 'fear and terror'

Katie Bell, 25, of Stradbroke Road, appeared at Sheffield Crown Court today (August 13) having previously pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking involving serious alarm and distress.

Recorder Andrew Smith MBE heard that since 2017 Katie Bell persistently targeted two women, who were complete strangers, with ‘thousands of messages’ of vile abuse about their families and businesses, often publicly online.

Prosecuting, Soheil Khan said that Bell was a ‘continued and prolific troll on various social media’ who initially targeted Mrs Gillian Childs, of Dorset, after she ‘admonished’ the defendant for commenting abuse on a police Facebook post about a missing person.

The court heard that Bell then ‘latched onto’ Mrs Childs, sending her messages including ones which said ‘die b***h’ and ‘you and your granddaughter will rot in hell’.

The court also heard that Bell would message Mrs Childs’ chocolate business’ page on social media, to the point where Mrs Childs said she ‘felt daily dread’ about opening her messages and that this prevented her from doing her business online.

In her victim impact statement, Mrs Childs also told the court that the abuse continued even when her husband passed away, and that it “made her life unbearable for her and the things [Bell] sent were unforgivable”.

Bell was also sentenced stalking Tracey Patterson, who ran a charity for the homeless in Birmingham, for 16 months.

The messages Bell sent to Mrs Patterson included pictures of a child’s coffin labelled ‘for your granddaughter’ and claims that Mrs Patterson was stealing money from her charity to fund her own holidays.

The court heard that Bell did this together with another woman called Natasha Wilds, who was arrested in 2019.

Speaking in court, Mrs Patterson said: "I never left the house alone for 14 months. [Bell] destroyed a charity that we built up over a five year period to help protect the most vulnerable people in our community.

“We were hopeful that once Natasha Wilds was arrested this whole experience would come to an end, but it seemed to become never ending.

"It escalated to the point where we were receiving the dreaded messages on a daily basis.

"Before [Bell’s] arrest West Midlands Police were so concerned that they agreed for the police and fire brigade to attend my property showing me how to get out if any petrol was poured through my letter box.

"Can you imagine the fear and terror we lived in waiting for that to happen?”

Defending Bell, Zaiban Alam said that Bell had suffered ‘severe bullying’ at school, which had left her a ‘damaged young woman’, had an impact on her ‘development’ and left her ‘lonely and with no friends’.

She also explained that psychologist and psychiatrist reports had found that Bell was of ‘borderline intelligence’ and was on the autism spectrum.

Ms Alam said that Bell, who has been volunteering for a charity since her arrest, was ‘truly sorry’ and was ‘ashamed to be before the courts and her victims’.

Recorder Smith acknowledged that a custodial sentence for Bell would have a ‘negative’ impact on her rehabilitation and she would be ‘vulnerable’ in a prison setting.

He also took into account Bell’s early guilty plea, her efforts at rehabilitation, and the fact the probation service felt she was unlikely to reoffend given the right support.

Recorder Smith said: "You identified them as people that you are not. Successful people with friends and you don’t have that. It seems to me there was a large degree of jealousy.”

He said that Bell caused her victims ‘very serious distress’ and, while he acknowledged that Bell was never planning to carry out acts of violence towards them, the victims did not know that as they were unaware of who or where she was.

Bell was sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for two years. She is subject to a restraining order from Mrs Patterson and Mrs Childs indefinitely and she must complete 12 hours of unpaid work.

Bell must also pay a community surcharge of £170 and attend 20 sessions of rehabilitation activity.

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