A 38-year-old mother, from Paisley, Glasgow, slept in her bathtub for seven months to hide from her stalker ex-boyfriend.
After Joanne McGonigle split from her 35-year-old boyfriend James McPhillips after being together for 12 years, he started sending her thousands of messages, threatening to kill her.
After he was convicted, Joanne talked about the time she barricaded herself in the bathroom and slept in the dark because she was afraid he would kill her as he told her: “You’re gonna suffer — I promise you.”
Joanne said she felt safer in the bathroom as there were no windows.
She said: “I would wake up every morning in the bathtub. I’d lie down and turn the lights out — I prayed he would leave me alone if he thought I wasn’t there.”
Joanne said she split from James as he had become secretive and after the split, he started sending her hundreds of texts and voicemails, threatening to kill her.
He would start sending vile messages in the morning that would go on until late at night.
He even pretended to be Joanne’s stillborn daughter once. Joanne said: “He would say he was my wee girl and that I let her die — that I deserved the fact she is gone.”
He threatened to cut her throat and blow up her car. He’d throw things at her windows and look through the letterbox.
Joanne was afraid he would take her kids. She said he would text her and tell her to watch her back.
She said she was looking over her shoulder everywhere she went.
She added: “My own home was like a prison. The lights and TV were never on. I thought he would kill me.”
After Joanne called cops, he was banned from Paisley but he ignored the order and again started showing up outside her house.
Joanne then had to sleep in the bathroom in the dark for seven months.
Finally, James was charged and convicted.
Joanne said at the time: “We’d been together for a long time but that meant nothing in the end. They need to lock him up — he is dangerous. I dread to think what he could do to somebody else.”
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