Manchester Crown Court has adjourned the sentencing of a woman who pleaded guilty to stalking media and tech industry figures, including Manchester tech guru and Computer Weekly’s “second most influential woman in UK tech” Naomi Timperley, for a fourth time.
Samantha Wall, a Manchester PR and marketing consultant, has already pleaded guilty in court, but her defence team have applied and been granted an adjournment for hearing today (6 June).
The case was the topic of a recent BBC Panorama documentary reported how social media consultant Samantha Wall targeted several business people and falsely accused them of crimes ranging from slashing her tyres to poisoning her cat.
One victim, motivational speaker Brad Burton, told the BBC doc his one and only meeting with Wall lasted less than a minute. She posed for a picture with him after attending one of his workshops and later left a glowing video testimonial.
It was unremarkable, Burton said. “Just one of the thousands of people I must have met over the years.”
Two years later, she started attacking him online.
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In hundreds of posts, Wall described him as manipulative, a psychopath and a sociopathic abuser. Day after day, she accused him of making death threats, breaking her windows and killing her cat – all false allegations.
“She put it on social media across all platforms. She was painting a picture that, somewhere along the way, I had done all these things and I was trying to cover it up,” Mr Burton tells BBC Panorama.
“How do you prove a negative? That I had not poisoned the cat? Social media and the way it works, it’s guilty until proven innocent.”
Last month, as sentencing continued to be adjourned despite Wall’s guilty plea, Burton wrote on LinkedIn:
“Take it from me, I’m not going away.
I didn’t go away with Sam.
And I’m not going away now.
There’s a reason 98% of stalking cases never reach conviction.
It’s not because they’re not real.
It’s because most people can’t handle the pressure.
The intimidation.
The delays.
In my case the hundreds of people who come at me with online threats.
Or worse, the ones who chose to believe the lies and amplified them for likes & lols.
But I could.
I did.
We made it.
And if LinkedIn think I’m suddenly going to stop calling this out?
They’re mistaken.
LinkedIn reader… my story could be your story.
Most people can’t handle the pressure.
I’m most people.
But I was fortunate, because I had the right people around me. Guiding and supporting me. Quietly.
In the background.
Not everyone has that.
And that’s why this matters.
Hundreds of now proven in Crown Court completely made up posts about me.
My convicted stalker has 5 Guilty Convictions yet Linked In haven’t removed a single post… from her 4 year stalking & harresment campaign.
how does that work?
Take it from me LinkedIn
I’m not backing off.
Sorry… we’re not backing off. Naomi T. Justine Wright
Remove the posts.
Motivational.
Leader.
Ps: Social media… Guilty until proven innocent.”
Wall’s conviction specifically related to Tech North Advocates founder Timperley and Burton, who were targeted with abusive messages over a four-year period, although the Panorama doc revealed that several other business people were also targeted.
Wall’s legal team told the court that a psychiatric report shows she has a chronic delusional mental health illness, requiring a pause in sentencing.
Image: BBC iPlayer
