Leeds stalker spent nine months badgering widow with messages and home visits
A stalker who spent nine months pestering a woman and threatened to visit her home every day until she answered the door.
The woman was left “on edge” because of Darren Strangeway, who continued to badger her even after he was arrested.
The 49-year-old appeared at Leeds Crown Court and admitted a charge of stalking which caused serious alarm or distress.
Strangeway, of Ayresome Avenue, Lidgett Park, had known the woman for more than 20 years as part of a larger social group.
The woman’s husband died in October 2021 and Strangeway and the woman last had contact in February 2023.
But from March 2025, he began to message “persistently”, prosecutor Emily Thorbjornsen said.
He asked her to ring him which alarmed her because it was “not the way they usually communicated”.
She said she was busy and he said he would come over.
On April 11 he went to her home in Seacroft but she did not answer.
She felt the messages were becoming obsessive and days later he posted a card through her door apologising for his behaviour and left her a bottle of Bacardi and a bottle of Diet Coke.
But when she failed to reply, he sent her another card saying he would come round every day until she answered.
On April 27 he went to her home again, and when she again failed to answer the door, he waited for 15 minutes before leaving.
Strangeway was arrested on suspicion of stalking, but was later released with no further action.
In July he messaged her again, wishing her a happy birthday and later attended her work around 20 miles away.
The woman’s neighbours confirmed that Strangeway also parked outside of her home.
Again, he was reported to the police and arrested and bailed, but he contacted the victim again over Facebook on December 11.
The woman said she feels like Strangeway “won’t ever stop” and is “scared of what lengths he will go to to speak to her”.
She said she now carries a rape alarm whenever she leaves her home.
Strangeway, who has no previous convictions, was not represented by a barrister in court.
He told the judge that he never withheld his number and was in the area of her work at the time of his visit, rather than purposely driving the 20-mile distance.
Judge Simon Phillips KC gave him a 14-month sentence, suspended for 24 months, with a four-month GPS tracking requirement and 15 rehabilitation days to complete with probation.
He was also given an indefinite-length restraining order to keep him away from the woman.