Stalker detective tried to ‘destroy’ ex’s life by lying he was a paedophile

A former detective who stalked her ex-partner and tried to wreck his life after he broke up with her has been spared jail.

Sue Thorpe, 44, bombarded Barry Henderson with abusive voicemails, texts and emails in a year-long harassment campaign.

She also used the police national computer to illegally look up information about the surfing instructor following the split.

Thorpe told people Mr Henderson had been violent towards her when they were together and accused him of being a paedophile.

She repeated the vile claims to his friends, family members and even his new partner, and posted them online in a bid to harm his surfing business.

Newcastle Crown Court heard Thorpe also set up a fake email address to contact other organisations with her accusations, at one point pretending to be a concerned parent, and turned up at his workplace twice

Thorpe, a former officer with Northumbria Police, even set up fake Tinder accounts as ‘honeytraps’ to ‘try and catch him out’, the judge said.

In a victim impact statement read in court, Mr Henderson said Thorpe was ‘on a mission to destroy him’ and her ‘untrue and seriously alarming’ claims made him feel ‘physically sick’ when he read them.

His statement read: ‘Sue is clearly trying to ruin my life and make my day to day living a nightmare.

‘It is embarrassing and humiliating having to explain to family and friends what is happening.

‘What Sue has done has created a massive strain on my personal life.’

Mr Henderson described how Thorpe contacted several relatives, including his son, accusing him of ‘various disgusting things’ such as having affairs, drug taking and domestic abuse.

He even had to meet up with some of his friends to reassure them Thorpe’s claims about having affairs with their partners were all lies.

Mr Henderson said his business had had a ‘massive drop in bookings’, adding: ‘It has got to the point where some days I don’t even want to go to work and face my customers in case they believe what Sue is saying about me.’

On Wednesday Thorpe, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years after being found guilty of stalking and misuse of computer data.

She was also ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work, 20 rehabilitation activity days and handed a 10-year restraining order banning her from any contact with Mr Henderson.

Judge Amanda Rippon said after the trial she was ‘absolutely sure’ that Thorpe’s claims that she saw Mr Henderson looking at images of teenage girls on the internet, and that he assaulted her, were not true.

She said Thorpe, who had been a police officer for 19 years, had suffered a miscarriage of twins following IVF and the offending happened ‘at a time of her life when she was in crisis and ill’.

Sentencing Thorpe to a suspended jail term, Judge Rippon said: ‘That you were able to access police computers because you were a police officer is an additional and very serious feature, but you were ill, you were lost, and you were acting entirely out of character, undoubtedly as you saw your last chance of a family dissipate.’

The court heard Thorpe had resigned from the police but would probably have been sacked following misconduct proceedings after her conviction.

After the trial in April, Northumbria Police said Thorpe had been suspended from the force.

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