A CONTROVERSIAL businessman who followed his ex-wife, bombarded her with calls and messages and photographed her has been convicted of stalking.

Anthony De Havilland, formerly known as Tony Ramsden, was a seemingly successful property agent who enjoyed all the 'accoutrement of wealth', including a Ferrari, a Porsche, holidays to Mexico and Vietnam and a luxury flat he shared with wife Simone Jackson.

But his 'champagne lifestyle' was built on a 'lemonade budget' and he had been declared bankrupt three times and jailed in 2013 for dishonesty offences.

And behind closed doors he was a dominating and possessive husband a court heard.

The former Conservative councillor, who once served on Bournemouth Borough Council, was said to have controlled his wife's finances and isolated her from her friends and family.

When Miss Jackson, 33, finally plucked up the courage to leave the 54-year-old, he refused to let her 'get away from him'.

He instilled 'a genuine sense of fear' in her by 'bombarding' her with phone calls and Whatsapp messages and 'tracking her movements'.

One time he followed her car in his Porsche Cayenne in a frightening four mile pursuit from Sandbanks to Bournemouth police station.

On another occasion he spotted her outside the Tesco Express store on Sandbanks with a friend.

He told her to smile and took a snap of the pair before sending her a cruel photo message telling her she looked 'grim, miserable and vacant' in the picture.

De Havilland was said to have sent a chill down Miss Jackson's spine by sending her a photo of a friend's property she was house sitting for at the time.

He messaged: "I am outside the flat. It has come to this'.

De Havilland wrongly feared Miss Jackson was having an affair with a new potential landlord and so emailed him to 'torpedo' and 'put the kibosh' on her plans of moving into a flat.

He then messaged Miss Jackson, telling her 'I am sure he fancied you' and followed it with a cruel jibe that she would 'probably get rent free after the first month'.

De Havilland denied the offences and claimed his ex-wife had been stalking him.

When he followed her to a nail salon in Westbourne on another occasion, he claimed she was aware of his morning routine of visiting a gym and then a coffee shop nearby and so knew he would be there.

But magistrates in Poole rejected his version of events after being satisfied that De Havilland had been unable to accept his marriage was over.

He was found guilty of stalking between May 15 and June 17 last year and will be sentenced next month.

In 2013 De Havilland, Tony Ramsden, was jailed for 10 months for dishonesty offences. He had obtained a £25,000 loan from a former business partner without declaring his bankruptcy status.

He reinvented himself as Anthony De Havilland after he got out of jail.

He met Miss Jackson in a bar in Bournemouth and they married in Cancun, Mexico, in February 2019 after a 12 month romance.

They launched a flower shop business in Westbourne in 2020 and lived in a flat next to Parkstone Golf Club.

She said: "With his money, it was a case of him having a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget.

"It was very much credit cards that he ran up to the max and I helped him pay them off.

"He bought a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti which got taken off him. We had holidays in Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and Spain but it was on credit cards.

"With him it was all bravado, an image thing.

"But he isolated me from my friends and family. He would not be very nice to them and would create a bad atmosphere. It led to rows and I felt like I was given an ultimatum of him or my family.

"It was easier to go along with it because it led to arguments.

"I never had any money, he controlled the finances. I knew the florists was making money but I never saw any of it.

"Eventually I didn't like the controlling element and I just felt like I needed to get out. I realised I wanted children one day but not with him."

Miss Jackson moved out of their flat in early 2023 and went to stay with a friend at first.

She was on the verge of signing a contract to move into a flat until De Havilland intervened.

A court heard that he sent her new landlord two emails warning him not to get emotionally involved with his ex-wife.

Leah Dillon, prosecuting, told the court that De Havillland had 'no right' to get involved and this was an example of him trying to control the victim.

On June 2 De Havilland called Miss Jackson 120 times in the space of a few hours.

Miss Jackson said she got a sense that she was being watched and followed and on June 7 last year she had the first of several encounters with her ex She had been walking by herself along the edge of Poole Harbour at Sandbanks and was heading back to her Range Rover when she said De Havilland 'jumped out' in front of her.

She said: "He started banging on the windscreen and I locked the doors.

"As I drove away I had to swerve to avoid him and then saw him run to his Porsche and start following me. I drove to the police station and I was on the phone to the police the whole time. adrenaline through the roof shaking and scared.

"This was at 9.30pm and I stayed in the police station until 4am because I just didn't feel safe to leave."

On June 13 while Miss Jackson was visiting a nail salon De Havilland walked by and then entered.

She said: "I told him I didn't want him to be there and that he needed to leave. I felt threatened by him."

On June 15 she was with a male friend outside the Tesco store on Sandbanks when De Havilland appeared. He took a photo of them before sending her the cruel message.

He sent her another photo message the following day of the address she was housesitting at and was arrested by police on June 17.

Miss Jackson said: "After he was arrested he had bail conditions to keep away from me and I had no further contact with him.

"He had to plead not guilty because he had to try and save face. His thought process is that he was 100 per cent not guilty. He believes his own lies."

Ms Dillon put to De Havilland that he was a stalker who instilled a 'genuine sense of fear' in his ex-wife.

In finding De Havilland guilty of stalking, district judge Orla Austin said: "I am satisfied that Simone Jackson was a credible witness.

"Mr De Havilland gave evidence in a way that suggested to me that he was unable to accept that the relationship was over and that he turned up where she would be and he bombarded her with messages.

"It was harassment."

Miss Jackson said: "The verdict was a massive relief. For my own sanity I needed the legal system to believe in me and give me justice."