Dog groomer tried to extort £100,000 from man she branded a paedophile
A mother of two has been jailed after she threatened to say he was a paedophile unless he hand over £100,000.
Dog groomer Deborah Hatton, 42, drove her victim to consider taking his own life in 2021 after she was told he had abused her friend as a child.
He denied the allegation, but she then tried to extort him and her lawyer Ian Morris said she ‘felt [he] should make good and pay for what happened’.
Judge Abigail Hudson told her Hatton, from Wigan, ‘You believed the allegation to be true. But I am astonished that anyone in your position could have perceived that the appropriate action in these circumstances was to reduce something so personal to cash – but you did.’
She added: ‘There may well have been a desire to go to the police – but that was coupled with threats to make him a walking target.’
After hearing of the alleged abuse, Hatton started to make threats, telling him to pay £100 into her friend’s account every week otherwise she would out him as a paedophile.
One message said: ‘Your next visit is not going to be from me.’
Hatton’s victim lost so much weight in a matter of weeks that he started to look ill, a fact Hatton herself had noticed.
The judge said: ‘When you saw him, you noted how ill he looked and commented upon how much weight he had lost – but could manage no humanity and instead sent him a message again threatening to destroy his life if he didn’t pay.’
Fearing for his safety, the victim agreed to pay £250 to Hatton’s friend and then went to the police and Hatton was subsequently charged.
Judge Hudson said: ‘He quite rightly recognised that if you followed through on those threats he would be at risk of profound violence every time he left his home.
‘And he was terrified. The distress and damage that you caused was profound.’
The blackmail charge stated that Hatton ‘made an unwarranted demand of £100,000 with menaces’ between April and August 2021.
Hatton was found guilty of blackmail and jailed for 16 months after a trial at Bolton Crown Court. Her victim will not be prosecuted for the sex allegations.
Sentencing, Judge Hudson said: ‘The way you behaved was frankly horrific. It was callous, cruel, and entitled. You went round to this man’s house and you threatened to destroy his life.’
The judge added: ‘Sadly, I can detect little remorse. I have seen a number of references which speak highly of you while implying that “the other party” was the problem.
‘You don’t acknowledge the cruelty of your actions and while I accept that you believed the complainant to have done something horrific, to have such an arrogant view of your own superiority is troubling.’
In mitigation, Hatton’s lawyer Mr Morris said his client, who is the sole carer of her two teenage children and works alone as a dog groomer, may lose her home.
He said: ‘Her fear is that if she goes to custody it will have an impact on all those things.
‘There is the suggestion of the loss of her home and the children’s home more importantly, the only one they have ever known, as well as the loss of her business.
‘There is a low likelihood of reoffending – she has not put a foot wrong as far as the law is concerned in these intervening years.’
He added: ‘This was not a persistent course of regular threats and visits. There was no damage to property, no physical assaults, more of a view of what could happen hypothetically, that never did.’
But the judge said: ‘You are not perfect Miss Hatton and your sitting in judgment on others without any humility shows a real meanness of spirit. More than that – it causes me to fear that you will behave this way again.
‘The reality is that those who blackmail others, particularly in such a horrendous way as this must receive custodial sentences to ensure that the public understand that such threats are wholly unacceptable and inexcusable.’
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