61-Year-Old Man Floods Woman with Harassing Messages Demanding £150 After She Declines Sexual Advance

A FIEND bombarded a woman with abusive messages and demanded £150 for a “wasted date” after she refused to have sex with him.

Paul Chapman, 61, sent his victim, from Southend, , a string of abusive messages claiming she owed him £150 he’d “wasted” taking her on a date.

Paul Chapman walked free from court with a suspended sentence and a five-year restraining order. Credit: SWNS Chapman claimed the woman owed him £150 for what he said was a ‘wasted date’ and sent her loads of abusive messages Credit: SWNS

Basildon Crown Court heard Chapman, from , Essex, claimed he’d hacked her online accounts and obtained her address.

He followed up with messages calling her the c-word and a “s**g”, telling her: “I won’t be wasting my time to come and crush you like the maggot you are.”

The victim was threatened that if she didn’t pay up, he’d send people to her home and Chapman later told he’d done it because he wanted “to watch her squirm”.

The court heard the woman was so frightened she fled her home for two weeks.

Judge Mark Ockelton told Chapman: “I accept – I’m not confident whether it makes it better or worse, however – that that was all a load of nonsense.

“You had no access to her details, that you were threatening to use in the future.

“She was quite rightly really frightened of what you had said and as a result she had to leave her house for a while.

“She was sensible however to this extent: that even on the basis of what you had said, she did not pay the .

“Instead, she went to the police.”

The court heard Chapman met his victim via the online service Match.com in November 2023.

They had their first date on December 14 that year and met again two days later at a Rochford restaurant.

At that second meeting, she told police, Chapman began acting in a “controlling and possessive” way, passing comment on the outfit she had chosen and then sexually assaulting her.

After the Rochford date, Chapman told the woman he was going on holiday on December 22 and began pressuring her to spend a night with him before he left.

But, said prosecutor Robert Forrest, “She made it clear that she did not want to spend the night with him.”

Chapman texted her at around 3am on December 22, saying he was “too old for just for a walk in the park”.

He was “a real man”, he said, and had met another woman who “gave him what he wanted”.

That night, he messaged her: “You should know we hacked your accounts, all of them, and your Match accounts and your phone.

“Interesting reading. Not a surprise though LOL.”

Another message the following day said: “We have your address now.

“Got it from database from your car registration, so you need to pay me what you owe me by PM today or people will come to collect and that will cost you £200 a visit.”

The demands for money continued, including a message from another number saying: “Merry , you lying b***h, from . You need to pay that bill.”

Chapman, who had convictions for 29 previous offences including violence and dishonestly, later admitted being behind all the messages.

He told Essex Police he’d done it because the victim had been using him for his money.

He was charged with sexual assault and blackmail, pleading not guilty to both.

On what would have been the first day of his trial in February 2026, he struck a plea bargain: he pleaded guilty to blackmail, but the sexual assault charge was left to lie on file.

Defence barrister Michael Latham told the court: “He regrets very much that he behaved in the way that he did.

“He accepts that it was wrong of him and he accepts that it was upsetting for her.”

Recorder Ockelton sentenced Chapman to two years in , suspended for 18 months, with 100 hours of unpaid work and 25 rehabilitation activity days.

He added: “You wanted to go further than she did and you got cross with her and you took that out on her.

He also ordered him to pay £300 compensation to the woman, plus £187 in court fees, and imposed a five-year restraining order banning Chapman from contacting or going near the victim.