A chess master has been sentenced to 28 months in prison for stalking, and labelling a university student as a prostitute in revenge for her refusing to rekindle an extra marital affair.
Married Paul Keevil, 55, had been gifting money to the woman in her 20s after a series of sexual encounters.
He later resorted to blackmail when she began a relationship with another man and became pregnant with his child, a court heard.
Over a five month period obsessed Keevil vowed to publicly humiliated his former mistress as a ‘sex worker’ in hopes of getting her thrown off her degree course and sacked from the children’s nursery she worked at.
A court in Bolton heard Keevil, a chess master who acts as a carer to to his wife, first met the victim in 2018 via the dating website Seeking Arrangements – now known as Seeking.
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Prosecutor Tom Farr said: ‘The two of them were in a brief relationship for a few months until she ended the relationship December 2018.
‘From 2019 they remained in contact and from time to time the defendant gave her sums of money, which she sometimes requested – and on one occasion after the end of the relationship they engaged in consensual intimate sexual activity.’
Though their relationship ended after that, in 2021, Keevil wanted to rekindle it – but when the victim declined, he began his campaign of defamation.
She initially responded kindly to his persistent messages, making it clear as to why she did not want to rekindle things, but Keevil did not take no for an answer.
‘The defendant repeatedly threatened her that unless she paid him a sum of money, he would disclose to others that she had worked as a sex worker,’ Farr added.
‘She had never worked as a prostitute but these malicious threats were designed to manipulate and control her. He told her that un less she did as he demanded, he would disclose this fiction to, members of her family, to her university, to her employer and to OFSTED.’
Keevil messaged the woman on one occasion and said: ‘I’m going to be blunt with you, if you want the threats to stop, the only way it’s going to happen is if you return things to 2018. I’ve waited long enough.
‘I don’t want things to turn nasty but they will do unless you voluntarily give 2018 back to me.’
He even used his expertise as a litigator in the personal injury legal sector to sue her for £5,000 for the return of the cash warning her she faced jail for fraud.
Keevil would also loiter and keep watch on the homes of both the woman and her mother, followed her boyfriend and took pictures of his car.
He also sent the victim thousands of menacing messages demanding recourse and even called a hospital maternity unit when she was giving birth to her baby pretending to be the the child’s father.
The woman – who cannot be named – was left feeing suicidal during Keevil’s campaign and told police: ‘His behaviour is so obsessive. He genuinely believes that I am his girlfriend no matter how many times I say ‘No’.
‘He is that obsessive I believe that he will either rape me or kill me and this is making me sick and exhausted. I have a baby and I am scared for his safety. I am also scared that if Paul sees me in public with the child he will snatch my baby to get me to speak to him.’
The woman said her partner left her because of Keevil’s actions, and she lives in constant fear because of him.
At Bolton Crown Court, Keevil of Hindley near Wigan, Greater Manchester, was jailed for 28 months after he admitted stalking the woman and sexual assaulting her. He was also ordered to sign the Sex Offender Register for ten years.
In mitigation, defence counsel Louise Cowen said: ‘Mr Keevil wishes to apologise to the complainant and her family. He is deeply sorry for the hurt and distress his actions have caused.
‘At the time he did not fully appreciate what he was doing and did have a genuine belief that he had entitlement to recover some sums he had paid to the complainant.’
Judge Mr Recorder Jeremy Lasker told Keevil: ‘You subjected the complainant to a sustained course of conduct which was aimed at pressuring her into resurrecting an intimate relationship with you and to demand repayment of monies which you had previously gifted to her.
‘You consistently refused to take no for an answer – you were effectively blackmailing her. She has found herself almost unable to cope with life and has been driven to consider suicide as the only way out of a set of circumstances which you have imposed upon her by your obsessive and unrelenting behaviour towards her. She has described that her life has become a nightmare from which even now she can see little escape.’
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