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Stalker jailed over rape and murder blog
A stalker was jailed today after writing a blog about raping and murdering a woman he had been harassing in real life for two years.
Greg Downing detailed the imagined attack on children's author Katharine Quarmby in an online novel.
The 40-year-old bombarded Ms Quarmby, of north London, with phone calls and emails since they met through an online dating site in 2008, Blackfriars Crown Court, in London, heard.
He was convicted of stalking her on three separate occasions before she found the blog online after typing her name into the internet search engine Google.
The 29-page piece, titled A Novel: Katharine Quarmby, is about a man stalking the writer, burgling her home, raping and finally murdering her.
Judge Deva Pillay sentenced Downing, of Beacon Road, Crowborough, East Sussex, to six months imprisonment.
He said: "This can only be described as a campaign of harassment.
"It is clear that your harassment of Miss Quarmby has been deliberate and premeditated so as to cause her and her family the maximum discomfort, embarrassment and fear."
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Weather for Leeds
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
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