A Royal Navy engineer who ran a campaign of hate against is ex-partner has been ordered to leave her alone or go to jail, writes Ted Davenport.

Sam Turner became fixated with the talented horsewoman after she ended their relationship and his stalking forced her to give up her hobby of carriage driving for several weeks until he was arrested.

Turner called her family in the middle of the night and posted alerts listing her as a missing person on the Facebook page of the village community where she lived near Hatherleigh.

He hacked into her Facebook page and one of her email accounts and sent out bogus messages which made friends worried about her welfare. He also made the false claim that she had given him AIDS.

He turned up at the stables where she kept her horses and sent abusive messages about her to the organisers of carriage riding events which left her too scared to take part.

Turner, who is a petty officer in the Royal Navy, even pestered the woman at the vet’s surgery where she worked, calling the on duty vet in the middle of the night to report her missing when she failed to answer his calls.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court imposed a restraining order banning any direct or indirect contact with the victim, including on social media, and warned him he would go straight to jail for two years if he broke the order.

The order includes a ban on Turner attending any carriage driving events.

The Royal Navy are expected to take their own disciplinary measures but are likely to allow him to remain in the service because there is a shortage of specialists in the type of engineering in which he is an expert.

He had been commended for his work one the ice research ship HMS Protector in the Antarctic and has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after two tours of duty in Afghanistan in which he worked as an engineer with special service units.

Turner, aged 40, of Bowhay, Black Torrington, admitted stalking and was jailed for 11 months, suspended for two years by judge Mr James Adkin. He ordered him to do 180 hours unpaid community work, 27 days of rehabilitation activities, and to receive six months of alcohol treatment.

He told him: ”You made phone calls and sent abusive messages in which you made false allegations about her. You hacked her Facebook and email accounts. You sent messages when you were sober and emotional and when you were drunk, abusive and irrationally fixated.

“She found it emotionally draining, distressing, extremely inconvenient, stressful and embarrassing. You pursued your action over a prolonged period. On any view this was extremely harassing and had a huge impact.”

Miss Victoria Bastock, prosecuting, said the stalking began after a relationship broke up in November 2022 and continued despite him receiving police warnings and continued on and off until early this year.

It began with him making up to 40 attempted calls or messages a day and moved on to him reporting her missing to her family, her employer, the police or fellow villagers if she refused to answer or call him back.

He accused her falsely of having an affair with another man and went to the stables where she kept her, including on a carriage driving Facebook page. He contacted her friends and alleged she had given him Aids and was trying to get him sacked from the Navy with the loss of his pension.

He tried to get her banned from taking part in carriage driving events and she wrote a victim impact statement saying she was so worried Turner tracking her down that she stopped taking part in them.

She wrote: “He set out to make my life as difficult as possible and he caused me maximum disruption. It affected my mental and psychological health and caused me embarrassment.”

Mr Stephen Nunn, defending, said Turner has been in the Royal Navy since he was 17 and has been told they wish him to remain in the service if his sentence allows. He suffers from PTSD as a result of his service in Afghanistan.

He regrets his actions and is keen to receive help with his use of alcohol.