Dating app stalker rang Leeds woman up to 50 times a day and 'made her feel like a prisoner'

Cocaine-using Oliver Gilbank terrified the female after she ended their brief relationship, would turn up at her home, peer through her window and follow her in his car.

The 34-year-old admitted a charge of stalking, but continued to blame the victim, claiming it was her fault for his behaviour.

During his sentencing hearing at Leeds Crown Court, Judge Robin Mairs told him: “You are here because of your actions, not hers. It is your fault. She felt like a prisoner in her own home.”

Gilbank and the woman met online in late 2021, dating for around three months until she ended it in January.

Then on February 3, while she was home with a male friend, Gilbank turned up and began looking through the window. He asked to come in, the woman refused but he let himself in.

He then left, but rang the woman and said he was going to kill the man with her and called her a “sl*g”. The male then left her house and Gilbank followed him. He kept ringing the woman and sending her messages.

The next day he turned up at her home and followed her after she got her two-year-old daughter in her car and drove to a Starbucks. He approached her in the queue and and followed her to a table. She continually asked him to leave, prosecutor Jemima Stephenson told the court.

He eventually left, then called her 50 times that day while withholding his number.

In the early hours of the next day, he again turned up at her home again demanding to be let in, looking through the windows and claiming he had his two sons with him and they were cold. Over the next three weeks he called her, emailed and even sent a hand-written letter telling her he loved her and begged for another chance.

The woman eventually called the police out of fear for her safety.

Miss Stephenson said: “She was anxious and overwhelmed. It had a significant impact on her. Her anxiety levels rose, she kept windows and blinds shut and was panicked by anyone knocking on the door. She did not feel safe in her own home.”

Following his arrest, he gave a prepared statement denying any wrongdoing and refused to answer further police questions.

Gilbank, of Cornmill Drive, Liversedge, has no previous convictions. Parts of a pre-sentence report into Gilbank were read which claimed he had “limited insight” into how his behaviour had affected her.

It was heard that he even “wished he had pleaded not guilty” and “spoke incredibly scathing about the victim”.

Mitigating for Gilbank, Timothy Jacobs said his client had “recognised he had a problem with drugs" and had been tackling his cocaine use.

He said: “There’s a willingness to co-operate with those keen to help him. He does not like the person he was.”

Judge Mairs gave him an eight-month sentence, suspended for two years. He was also ordered to enrol in an accredited relationships programme, and given a restraining order of indefinite length to keep him away from the woman.