A woman has been sent to prison for 13 months after catfishing a British gay man and his boyfriend on Grindr, collecting intimate and sexual photos, stalking them, and sabotaging their lives with threats and rumors.
Yannick Glaudin attempted to evade the police by fleeing to her native France. She was finally apprehended after police put out CCTV images and extradited on a European arrest warrant.
The Guardian reports: “John McNamara, prosecuting, told the court that in May 2017, Glaudin, using the pseudonym Steven St Pier, met her first male victim via Grindr. The pair exchanged phone numbers, email addresses and even the victim’s CV as he was job hunting. ‘During the period of contact, the victim sent to the defendant a number of intimate and personal pictures and videos,’ McNamara said. But the victim had doubts over Glaudin’s true identity and ended their online-only contact in December 2017. This triggered months of harassment, beginning with the defendant sending the sexual images to his stepfather, friends and friends of friends.”
When Glaudin’s target began dating another man, she went after him as well, contacting the boyfriend’s friends using pseudonyms and spreading lies using Instagram and Facebook, The Guardian adds: “In March 2018, a false report was made to Crimestoppers claiming the boyfriend had been abusing a young boy and was linked to a known prostitute, McNamara said. On another date, a fake report was made to police pretending to be from a victim’s boss, ‘stating that he had seen videos of underage sex on a laptop’, the prosecutor said. Other messages suggested there was ‘a price’ of €1,000 on the boyfriend’s head in Barcelona and London. Photos of the first victim using the London underground were also emailed to him.”
Said the now former boyfriend to the court: “I suffered the extreme shock of constant, insidious daily harassment at home, work and on every online channel I was registered on, by someone completely anonymous, using multiple aliases. The perpetrator has accused me personally of being a paedophile, impersonated me and my partner online via dating applications, sent multiple strangers to my home demanding anonymous sex, followed me … home, and taken photographs of our front door and taunted us about it.”
Said the judge to Glaudin, who was also given a lifetime restraining order: “It’s difficult to understand why you did what you did, other than that during the period of your offending you were consumed by jealousy and a desire for revenge.”
