Woman Jailed For Creating Fake Accounts On Social Networking To Criminally Cyberstalk And Harass Others

July 17. 2019

Jill Sharp used Photoshop to edit herself into a photo with Graham McQuet (left). He is pictured with his fiancée Marianne (right)

32-year-old Jill Sharp was arrested for criminal stalking in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. She stalked and harassed a former friend, Margaret Patton and her husband Steven Patton. She created many fake accounts on social networking to target the couple. Sharp used other people’s photos to create fake social networking accounts to send the couple insulting, harassing, threatening and menacing messages, out of jealousy.

She also sent the couple a slew of threatening emails and text messages, while pretending to be other people. She additionally sent derogatory and defamatory items to the couple’s employers and the golf club they joined, willfully and falsely labeling them drug dealers selling narcotics to kids. She falsely accused them of committing a string of crimes.

The harassment and smear campaign caused her victims a great deal of distress over the course of 3-years. Sharp’s criminal misconduct resulted in the couple having to be medicated for depression and anxiety. They were also unable to work, due to the barrage of threatening conduct she leveled at them.

Police investigated Sharp as the culprit behind the misconduct. Authorities successfully traced the extensive cyberstalking, threats and harassment campaign to Sharp. As such, Sharp was arrested, tried and sentenced to 1-year in jail. She wept when the sentence was read in court. Margaret Patton stated, “This woman caused so much damage to Steve and I over a period of years and it affected our jobs and our health.”

Jill Sharp

This is not the first time Sharp has targeted a couple. She became obsessed with, Graham McQuet, and his fiancée, Marianne Stirling. Sharp had even falsely claimed to friends that she was engaged to McQuet. Sharp’s friends did not believe she was engaged to McQuet. She repeatedly spoke of the engagement but refused to bring him around to meet them. Photos she showed them on social networking also appeared to have been Photoshopped. Sharp’s misconduct prompted her friends to contact and warn McQuet of her false claims.

Sharp had used Photoshop to alter McQuet’s photos and add herself to the images, to create the false impression they are a couple. She did so after stalking McQuet and his fiancée to London and retracing their steps. She took photos at each place they visited, as seen in pictures he posted on his Facebook page, then edited his fiancée out of the photos and Photoshopped herself in, to make it look like she was the one dating McQuet.

Dissatisfied with her real life, Sharp had created what is being referred to as a second life on Twitter. She told friends that McQuet was her fiancée, despite the fact he’d never met her and has been happily engaged to someone else. One of Sharp’s friends told the Daily Record, “She was leading this incredible life on social media but no one had seen her with him and it was just plain strange.”

She became possessive of someone who had no interest in her and proceeded to engage in a laundry list of stalker type crimes in a vain attempt at creating a false illusion for the public. It was a terrible idea on her part, as it resulted in the couple filing a police complaint against Sharp. Police initially declined the case, until the Daily Record newspaper contacted them about the matter and they gave the case a second look.

STORY SOURCE

Stalker faked four-year relationship with man after stealing his Facebook pics to convince pals she was engaged

06:00, 8 FEB 2017 - A woman silently stalked a man for four years on the internet – and even claimed they were engaged. Jill Sharp created a fake second life using photos a couple put on social media. She copied the movements of Graham McQuet and his real fiancee Marianne Stirling so she could be pictured in places they had visited.

Then Sharp posted photos of her fantasy life on Twitter, telling pals they were to marry. But her suspicious friends tracked down Graham and Marianne just days ago and tipped them off. He didn’t have a clue Sharp even existed.The horrified couple went to police, who have now launched an investigation...

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk