A stalker, Karl Chads, who threatened to rape and murder a woman and unlawfully entered her residence twice has been sentenced to over 13 years in prison. Karl Chads, 42, was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on Thursday, October 10, for six offences, including stalking a woman and her partner, threatening to rape and murder her, and vandalising her residence after two break-ins.
Prosecution counsel Lucy McGarr informed the court that Karl Chads, a resident of Pimlico, solicited his victim’s personal phone number under deceptive circumstances on October 18.
Ms. McGarr stated, “Subsequent events can only be characterised as the defendant initiating a campaign of harassment against her.” Chads thereafter dispatched letters, notes, gifts, and further items, even going so far as to reach out to the burger brand Honest Burger regarding things he may present to her.
This continued for months, before on December 17, he started calling his victim over and over again, “upwards of 40 times”, Ms McGarr estimated. One of the times Karl Chads called her, she picked up the phone, and her partner began recording the call.
“Mr Karl Chads made repeated threats and threatened to rape [the victim] in front of [her partner],” the prosecution counsel told the court. The victim, reading an impact statement aloud to the court, said: “These comments covered a spectrum of harassment, from threats to get me fired to threats to rape me in front of my partner and put a bullet through my head.”
Just hours later, Karl Chads then broke into her home. Luckily, she wasn’t at home as she had left the property out of fear following the phone call, Ms McGarr told the court.
Karl Chads broke in through the bathroom window to the property and smashed the shower door on his way in. He then stole his victim’s journal, but dropped pages of it in front of the house as he left. But only a few hours later, Chads returned to the house and tried to force his way inside again.
Karl Chads shattered a couple of the glass panels on the front door and managed to pull some of his victim’s coats out through the door before he threw them onto the street. Karl Chads was arrested and searched, where seven condoms were found in his front trouser pocket.
‘We couldn’t go out in case Karl Chads was lying in wait’
The victim told the court: “Karl Chads has done nothing short of ruining my entire life.” She added: “He broke into my home, my sanctuary, to rape and murder me.”
She said she would stay up until 4am every morning teaching herself self-defence and jiujitsu moves, and has gone from someone who exercised five times a week to having panic attacks and losing her hair. Her partner added in a separate statement: “We lived in a quarantine-like environment. No routine, no sleep, no peace. We didn’t go out, in case Karl Chads was lying in wait.”
The victim said: “He does not and will not take accountability for what he did to me, he thinks I’m just an object to discard. Make no mistake, as soon as he’s released he will hunt me down and will not stop.”
Karl Chads’ behaviour ‘manipulative and predatory’, judge says
In mitigation, defence counsel Katherine Higgs explained that Karl Chads suffers from epilepsy and has struggled with drug and alcohol addictions in his 20s. However, judge Tim Godfrey said to Chads during his summary of the case: “The nature of these offences are exceedingly troubling.
“You targeted a young woman relentlessly and only stopped once in custody. In you interview with a police officer after you were arrested, you failed to understand why [the victim] did not want to respond positively to your messages and gifts. You consider yourself to be the victim, yet your behaviour was manipulative and predatory.”
The judge declared Karl Chads a dangerous individual and gave him an extended sentence of 159 months, which totals 13 years and three months. This is made up of a 99-month custodial term and another 60 months in an extended licence.
Karl Chads was also made subject of a stringent restraining order, which bans him from getting on any Underground, Overground or national railway trains at a handful of stations. He has also been banned from using several others, due to their proximity to his victim’s workplace.
Karl Chads has also been banned from contacting his victim or her partner, or going within 100 yards of anywhere he believes or knows them to be living.
Karl Chads, wearing a dark suit and white shirt, remained expressionless as the judge’s sentence was passed.
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