‘My Stalker Was Living In My Loft’ | This Morning

Now it's the kind of story usually found in horror movies. Haley, 37,'s dream relationship turned into a nightmare after she broke up with her boyfriend. Ben Haley was subjected to a relentless campaign of harassment as her ex continued to torment her for months. Things finally came to a head when the police were unable to locate Ben and to Haley's horror, they found him hiding in his

loft

where Haley joins us now to explain more and Haley, thank you so much for being here today and I know the whole reason you want to be here and talk about

this

out loud is because it's actually the silence that drives the bullying to continue, so it's a very important thing to say, so let's start at the beginning of everything.

this

because you met him for the first time on a dating app.

Aren't first impressions what it was like? The things that attracted me to it were that it was very calm. He seemed very placid, very gentle. A wonderful father. Things women want in a man. Good traits. Yes. And simply. He absorbed me and progressed, it's reasonably fast, um and I got to the stage where you introduced him to your children because you're a mother of three. I did, um, and from that point, once you started meeting kids and getting to know each other a lot more there were still no red flags no, that progressed pretty quickly um Looking back now it was probably red flags um the progression of that um things he said that I now realize were possibly almost motherfucker stories that absorbed me well there There were some stories about the dog he lived in, yeah, and the dog was upset so he needed the dog to come to stay with you and then the dog was pining for his owner so he needed to come and move so it's like there was a lot of maneuvering and yes regulation exactly to a certain degree so now he's in the house everything is fine but you start to talk to her ex because the children have a kind of communication there and she starts telling you things, yes, at first.

There were subtle things, um, you know, I challenged him and he refuted what kind of things, um, she had made accusations that he had to strangle her, um, there was physical violence, um, and he actually got family members to come to the door and said. that were together around you hadn't witnessed that in your relationship I hadn't witnessed it at the time no um and then when you decided you know I don't like the way this is going I think we'll probably cancel this Yeah, so the manipulation increased enormously so the moment you said it wasn't working it was like a switch and they say it in horror movies but until you actually see it the glazed look crosses your eyes and you can't. reason, no matter what you do, you can't get him out of it, so it became quite scary at that point, no matter what you tried to do, whether it was kindness, empathy, being firm, nothing seemed to work, you had to get an organization. code word with children I was always a code word with my children, so I explained to them that, well, by now so many things had happened, so many events, his behavior was erratic, not predictable, violent, so he had gone to a well .

I was supposed to go to a Works Christmas party and had left my 17 year old daughter at home at the time, so I told her if things go wrong you can call me and tell me if the dogs need feeding that day . Ben had threatened to kill himself and the police. In fact, I called the police and told them this is his whereabouts. He will try to commit suicide. Now I realized it was a cry for help or another form of control, so when I called. The police were furious. The death threats came. I'm going to kill your family.

I'm going to kill your children. I'm going to kill you. God, um and some of that is what keeps the victims quiet. There is a worry about your family and other things, so that day I didn't really do it. go to the worst Christmas party I went to hide out at a friend's house um and he actually I don't know if he called The Works Christmas party or if he went there so I got messages saying you're not here you're lying, beep um I'm going to make sure you don't have a job, you don't have kids, you don't have a life, oh my God, I'm so sorry, so your daughter, so my daughter called me and said, Do dogs need to be fed?

Then you knew he was horrified. You knew he was in the house so I was torn because as a mother you want to run back but I also know that in the mix I have a tendency to escalate his behavior. You would call the police, obviously, and they went to the house and him? The house fled at that time um no, they searched the premises and then they left and then she called me again and said do the dogs need to be fed? And I told him: is he still in the house? Yeah, so I called the police again and said he's still in the house. house, so I'm trying to have a conversation with my daughter about the possible, you know, is he in the closet?

No, I think they might have been fed, like you fed them, is he in the garage? So I finally realized he was in The Loft and This is the second unfortunate thing about the police, is that the things that need to change is when they come back they come with blues and two so it gives him a warning that they are coming yeah so he actually left and he actually left the property and hid in a caravan that was in my way Well, he was on the run for 10 days and they finally found him, he pleaded guilty to stalking and was given a 20-week suspended sentence.

He was also granted a restriction. order Ban him from contacting you for three years um he admitted to being at the Loft um and he also broke the restraining order he made yeah but he had been

living

at the

loft

so he spent time there you had no clue he was in the house and he was at The Loft, that's right, yeah, so I'm still not sure at what points he came in and out. I mean, we found, you know, urine buckets and stuff in the Loft space. had removed all the Styrofoam from inside the loftuch so we could lock it from the inside oh I'm so sorry about my radar so I mean the police say we know that stalking and harassment devastates lives that we remain absolutely committed to safeguarding Victims After of a full investigation and subsequent conviction in 2020.

We are sorry to hear that the victim in this case did not feel heard and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue with them. She obviously has ideas that she would like to present to you. do to help anyone in the future. I think some of the biggest problems are that victims almost feel shamed in an element of guilt. We don't want to get people into trouble. You know, sometimes they have mental health issues and stuff. It makes us feel responsible almost like you want to get them in trouble. There is a huge problem with restraining orders.

They seem to issue those with power of arrest, but the power of arrest only covers direct or indirect contact and only the street you live on. So as a victim, the perpetrator may find themselves at the end of their road every day and there is nothing they can do about it, but obviously that affects their life dramatically and they also feel that because of what their family went through in the midst of their Catastrophic mentality, that absolutely must be reflected in the sentencing, it's not just mentally, there's a physical element, there's a massive financial element. I mean the police advised me to buy CCTV and it's all on me, they kicked in the front door and they billed me. that um and they almost questioned it at times, you know, they said things like, well, you can afford to have the door fixed based on my house and, in fact, at that point in my life, I really couldn't, you know, he financially rinsed me off, I didn't have anything, um. and that's almost a given on their part and I and I feel like they really need to have more front line training on the signs and it's not always a textbook or it's not always how it actually appears um and how are you now um I mean Like I said it ruins relationships.

I have lost friends. My friends moved house because their children were threatened. They had to explain to my children why there is a panic alarm on our property. You know the procedures of what's going to happen if you know they're worried that mom is going to die or you know it has a massive impact and I think here, you know, in the moment, it has a massive toll on physical health to live in the response of fight or flight on a daily basis the hyper the vigilance that that creates and the paranoia and the skepticism that changes you know you'll never look at people the same way it takes away things that you can never get back um and I don't think there's enough awareness about that well done for being here, yes, speaking and moving forward because every time someone does it, they do it a little more.

Yes, well, yes, thank you, yes, thank you very much.