Man, 71, Jailed 18 Weeks For Stalking 10-Year-Old Girl For Three Years Via Facebook
An elderly man, aged 71, was sentenced to 18 weeks in jail for stalking a 10-year-old girl on Facebook for 3 years, reported the Mirror. Although Michael Blanche of Pencoed in Wales “denied the offense under the Protection from Harassment Act,” he was found guilty on April 8 of stalking the girl – who can’t be named for legal reasons – between November 26, 2012 and October 3, 2015.
Blanche, “who runs a stall at carnivals and fairs, making hand sculptures out of wax,” claimed that he and the girl’s “relationship was nothing more than a friendship,” but sources say the pair never had any kind of relationship whatsoever.
Michael Blanche compiled picture montages of his 10-year-old victim and messaged her saying he loved her https://t.co/KV88XAfUxl
— WalesOnline (@WalesOnline) April 29, 2016
The alleged stalking began in 2011, when he first met the victim in a public place and reportedly waved at her. Sources say after their first encounter, he searched for the girl on Facebook and sent countless friend requests. When she accepted, he sent 60 messages to his victim, professing his love for her.
When the victim’s mother found out her daughter was being stalked, she contacted Blanche, who has children and grandchildren of his own, via Facebook and ordered him to leave her daughter alone, and she even reported the stalker to Facebook before blocking him. However, the mother’s gestures to make him stop stalking the young girl were seemingly all in vain as he continued to contact her via Facebook.
In fact, court documents stated that Blanche created another Facebook page under the name Mike Blank in order to get his victim to accept his friend request. Once accepted, he then took pictures from the girl’s Facebook profile and used them to make a video montage and titled it “Friends Forever.” The video montage was set to music from the 1960s, which included the lyrics “rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man.”
According to Wales Online, Blanche also took several pictures of his own, without her knowledge, to create the video montage. One photo was allegedly taken while she was coming out of school and another was taken when she was playing outside near a bouncy castle.
Pensioner, 71, stalked 10 year old girl for three years https://t.co/O15N0Mj1S0 via @MailOnline
— London Investigates (@lonvests) April 30, 2016
When Blanche continued to stalk the girl, her mother reported it to local police. HE was arrested, but he was released on conditional bail shortly afterward.
During the sentencing hearing on Friday in Bridgend, the defense attorney Richard Adamec stated, “Clearly, once he had his cards marked he should have desisted. He should’ve, but he didn’t. He views this as a friendship and that’s how it basically came across and may be viewed as, save for the disparity in age of these two people.”
“She [his victim] was asked how she viewed those messages and she thought they were a bit odd, a bit weird, and, as I submitted to you at the time, what she ultimately said is she really didn’t take his messages that seriously and they didn’t bother her and those were her words.”
Adamec went on to say that “whatever view you take of this, none of those messages were sexual, none of them were abusive – they may have been inappropriate in their tone, but they were in no way threatening.”
“You refer to a specific line in a song. There’s a clear implication there that he possibly meant to harm this child, but there’s absolutely no evidence to support that at the end of the day.”
Adamec added that “there was absolutely no threat issued by this man.”
However, a judge not only found Blanche’s behavior to be inappropriate, but also the video montage he sent to the girl in “October of last year on a memory stick attached to a key ring inscribed with the words ‘forever friends.'”
The magistrates’ chairman Linda James said, “We feel only a custodial sentence can be justified in this case.”
After a judge sentenced Michael Blanche to 18 weeks in jail for stalking a 10-year-old girl, a restraining order was issued to prevent Blanche from contacting his victim and her mother.
[Image via Shutterstock]
