'Poisonous' woman created 30 fake profiles to get innocent ex-boyfriend arrested
A "poisonous" woman who sent herself threats from fake Instagram accounts she created to get her ex-boyfriend arrested has been jailed.
Courtney Ireland-Ainsworth, 20, created up to 30 false profiles, then told police her ex Louis Jolly was behind "vile" messages.
“Cunning" Ireland-Ainsworth reported him for supposedly threatening to stab her and warning: "She is getting a f***ing blade in her chest."
She made 10 police statements claiming Mr Jolly was harassing and stalking her, leading to him being arrested six times and spending 81 hours in custody, including being remanded overnight.
He was charged with assault and stalking, hit with a stalking protection order, bailed on a home curfew with an electronic tag, and lost his job.
At Liverpool Crown Court, recorder Ian Harris told Ireland-Ainsworth: "You created an entirely fictional but superficially credible web of poisonous deceit for over five months."
Mr Jolly, 22, said the couple were together for two years but split up on "okay terms” in October 2019, before Ireland-Ainsworth started seeing a new boyfriend, a man called Declan Rice.
Ireland-Ainsworth, of Brackendale, Runcorn, then began her "deliberate and malevolent lies".
Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, said she made numerous calls to police from 15 July to 13 December, 2020, and provided screenshots of messages and the names of Instagram accounts, which she attributed to her victim.
Ireland-Ainsworth's mum rang police on November 15, saying Mr Jolly had threatened to stab her online and he was hit with an interim stalking protection order on 4 December, and bailed for six weeks with an electronically tagged home curfew, between 7pm and 7am daily.
Ireland-Ainsworth, who was 19 at the time, accused him of breaching the order and her mum called police on 13 December to report this.
However, when police received data from Facebook, it showed at least 17 Instagram accounts created using two of Ireland-Ainsworth’s email addresses and IP addresses connected to her home and mobile phone.
Ireland-Ainsworth was arrested and confessed to setting up the fake accounts before the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued stalking and assault allegations against Mr Jolly.
Jim Smith, defending, said his client was 19 at the time, immature and diagnosed as suffering from "complex" post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
He said: "She would have handled that breakdown [in the relationship] substantially differently than any other individual who was not subject to a mental disorder."
But the judge told Ireland-Ainsworth that her allegations had an “absolutely shattering effect" on the victim and his family, adding that Mr Jolly has “become a shell of the man he used to be”.
Ireland-Ainsworth was convicted of perverting the course of justice and was jailed for 10 months and given a 10-year restraining order.
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