(Image: Alamy/PA)
An online long-distance romance turned into a months-long nightmare for a York woman when she decided she had had enough.
Alex Lilley, 35, became “fixated” with the woman following her decision, said Alison Whiteley, prosecuting,
He rang the woman, claimed he was suicidal and described how he would kill himself if she didn’t resume their relationship.
Then he travelled more than 100 miles from his home to stand outside her house in York.
Police arrested him on the pavement in her street and later released him on bail on conditions he stay away from her.
But he continued to harass her by sending her a social media friend request under a false name and making repeated phone calls from a withheld number.
She answered one, thinking it was her doctor’s surgery, and recognised his voice.
When she told him he was forbidden to contact her he told her: “I don’t care if I go to prison, love has no limits."
“Lilley has been emotionally manipulative,” said Ms Whiteley.
The woman told police she was terrified for her safety.
She said: “He is very theatrical and I do not think he is going to stop with this fixation."
Lilley, of Valley Lane, Lichfield, pleaded guilty to harassing the woman between April 1 and November 25 last year (2025).
York magistrates gave him a 12-month community order with 15 days’ rehabilitative activities, fined him £620 and ordered him to pay a £248 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.
They also made him subject to a five-year restraining order banning him from contacting the woman directly or indirectly and from going near anywhere where he knew or believed her to be including her home and workplace.
Defence solicitor Charlotte Haigh said Lilley now accepted the relationship was over and wanted to move on in his life.
His upbringing could explain why he had struggled to deal with his emotions when the relationship ended.
He had felt suicidal and suffering from depression but was now on medication and was seeing things clearly. He was remorseful for his actions.
Ms Whiteley said the pair first met online in the summer of 2021. Their relationship was sporadically on and off and in Spring 2025, the woman decided to end it. Then the harassment began.
On one day during the period when Lilley was repeatedly ringing her on a withheld number, he made 23 calls to her in 20 minutes.