Comic guilty of harassment

A stand-up comic has been found guilty of harassing Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan with an avalanche of text messages and phone calls.

Tara Stout, 35, sent up to 200 'aggressive' messages a day, City of Westminster Magistrates heard

She had denied the charges, but District Judge Quentin Purdy said she was 'clearly guilty' based on what she had said in the witness box. He said some of the correspondence was offensive, some rambling and some plainly inane.

Stout, right, who has also been a BBC sports reporter, was immediately hit with a restraining order banning her from contacting Mr Jordan or his family. Sentence was adjourned to next Friday and Stout, who had represented herself, was released on conditional bail.

Jordan engaged a security firm and contacted police in April this year following Stout's threats. The messages became 'aggressive, insulting, derogatory, judgmental and ultimately taunting', he said.

The millionaire businessman added that she once left him a message threatening to 'gut my mother and slice my nieces'.

In police interviews, Stout, who lives in Clapham, South London, admitted harassing Jordan, but she said she wanted to show him he could not treat people badly.

She also sent him underwear and love letters, and billed him for shopping trips, after they met in March last year.

At an earlier hearing over the harassment charges, she stripped to a Union Jack bikini outside court before appearing in the dock.

She previously hit the headlines with reports of her swapping 'steamy' text messages with Gary Lineker. Both denied any physical relationship, but Lineker's marriaged collapsed soon afterwards.

And in June this year, Stout appeared in court after running topless through Soho in protest at the rent porn baron Paul Raymond charged on her Dean Street flat. When bailiffs arrived to evict her they found her wearing just a pair of bikini bottoms, and she ran out into the street. Magistrate Nicholas Evans dismissed the charge of disorderly behaviour but told Stout: "You are free to go, but this time keep your clothes on."

Stout used to be part of a sketch duo, and started performing solo on the London circuit in 2002, often in skimpy skirt and bra. She once appeared on the BBC's televised Malai comedy night, filmed at the Sound Bar in London's Leicester Square.

She has previously protested in a bikini outside Downing Street and claimed to be 'a freedom fighter

Published: 6 Oct 2006