Claire Foy ‘feared for her life’ after creep stalker bombarded star with 1,000 ‘graphic’ emails & turned up at her door
CLAIRE Foy “feared for her life” after an obsessed stalker sent 1,000 emails in a month and turned up at her home.
Jason Penrose, 49, bombarded The Crown actress with sickening rape emails and also begged her to be his girlfriend.
He also showed up at her home – forcing Foy, 38, to call the police – and contacted her sister, ex-boyfriend and agent.
Penrose has now admitted stalking involving serious alarm or distress and two breaches of a stalking protection order.
Thames Magistrates’ Court heard how Penrose first got in touch with the actress in August to ask her to be in a film he was writing.
But his obsession grew and he began sending “graphic” emails about “Foy being raped and wanting to be his girlfriend”.
Read more on Claire Foy
The chilling campaign had an “extreme effect” on the actress’ “life and peace of mind”.
She was left “terrified in her own home” after Penrose showed up and told her daughter: “It’s Jason, I’m outside”.
In a letter to the court, Foy said: “His relentless attempts to contact me are so traumatic. Every time I think this is sorted it is not.
“I feel like there is nothing that would stop him being able to contact me, he has affected every aspect of my life.”
Most read in The Sun
The court was told Penrose targeted Foy in a “sustained, unwanted, fixated and obsessive behaviour that was intrusive due to his delusional beliefs”.
He showed up at her home on December 17 last year and repeatedly rang her doorbell.
Penrose also messaged her on LinkedIn and Instagram.
The campaign of harassment forced Foy to beg pals not to tag her in social media posts in case Penrose found her.
It also left the actress “in genuine fear for her safety and terrified and helpless in her own home”.
Varinder Hayre, prosecuting, said: “Ms Foy was terrified as she did not know what his intention was. She was in fear for her and her daughter’s lives.
“She was frightened knowing he was somewhere.”
Foy was granted an interim stalking protection order earlier this year but Penrose sent her another letter and a parcel from the hospital where he was being treated.
A five-year stalking protection order against Penrose was then issued in July after the actress raised “great concerns due to the nature of the communications”.
District Judge William Nelson warned Penrose he is facing a jail sentence when he is sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on November 28.
He said: “‘The persistent conduct created very serious distress, a great deal of psychological harm and caused Ms Foy to make considerable changes to her lifestyle.”
USA-born Penrose, who was accompanied by NHS workers and gave his address as Whittington Hospital in North London, was released on conditional bail.
He must surrender his passport to police, not apply for travel documents, live and sleep as directed by the Islington NHS Trust, not contact Foy directly or indirectly or attend an address he knows or believes to be her address.
Penrose claimed from the dock “I don’t have any interest in doing that” when the bail conditions were made.
Foy has won a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Read More on The Sun
She starred in Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Unsane and played Neil Armstrong’s wife Janet Shearon in the biopic of the astronaut, First Man.
The actress famously played The Queen in the first two series of Netflix’s The Crown.