A “CRUEL” stalker claimed a successful businessman poisoned her cat and had a “psychopathic twin” during a relentless campaign of online abuse.
Samantha Wall has been jailed for “relentlessly” harassing author Brad Burton on social media after the pair met for just two minutes.
The social media consultant, 55, met Brad once at a motivational speaking event in Birmingham in 2019.
Following their brief meeting, Wall galvanised an army of followers to attack Brad, while constantly claiming she was the victim.
Thousands of posts were written against the motivational speaker, who Wall falsely alleged had been jailed for a decade after harassing her.
Among the bizarre string of claims, she said he had a “psychopathic twin brother who was covering for him whilst he was in jail”.
Brad previously told The Sun his cyber stalker was “everywhere” and likened his experience to the chilling Netflix series Baby Reindeer.
Last year, Wall pleaded guilty to five charges, including stalking and sending false messages.
Appearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court last Friday, she was jailed for two years and four months.
Greater Manchester Police has since released footage of her arrest.
Video taken from body-worn cameras shows a shocked Wall questioning officers as they apprehend her in her home.
And she continued to plead her innocence and blame her victim during the arrest, the court heard.
Nicholas Flanagan, prosecuting, said she admitted making up lies about Brad, but claimed she was doing so to “protect herself”.
He said: “The defendant admitted posting the content about Mr Burton and making up lies with the intention of them getting back to him.
“She claimed she did so to protect herself and scare him off so that he would stop harassing her.
“She alleged the posts were aimed to raise awareness about how dangerous Mr Burton is and prevent others being hurt as she had been.”
Mr Flanagan told the court Wall had restarted her social media attacks against Brad “as soon as her bail expired”.
Brad, from Salford, Greater Manchester, compared the abuse he received to a “modern-day witch hunt”.
He added: “It was thousands and thousands of posts, because she would post ten a day on every social media platform.
“Everywhere I looked I was getting bombarded. If I responded it would give her more power and I didn’t want to jeopardise our police case.
“She weaponised the internet and her followers against me.”
Another one of Wall’s victims was tech entrepreneur Naomi Timperley.
Naomi was bombarded with defamatory posts and harassed over a three eyar period, the court heard.
She told MEN: “For over two and a half years, I was hunted through hashtags, chased through timelines, cornered in comment sections.
“… my name dragged through the dirt of digital spaces that once held community but became cages of cruelty.
“And though there were no fists, no footsteps behind me in the dark, the harm ran deeper… this kind of violence doesn’t leave bruises you can see.”
