Stalker shared Fifty Shades of Grey extracts with travel influencer
A 'delusional' British stalker who share racy extracts from Fifty Shades of Grey with an American travel influencer has been found guilty of threatening to kidnap her.
Rob Keating, 39, faces jail after he was convicted of two counts of stalking involving serious harm or distress following a six-day trial at at Portsmouth Crown Court
The court heard Keating went 'from follower to stalker' after becoming obsessed with her posts on Instagram, booking a one-way ticket to the tropical Indonesian island of Bali while warning her to 'get kidnap insurance'.
He visited bars and restaurants close to her home and continued to message her while she was in Bali, telling her: 'You're never getting rid of me.'
Alexandra Saper – a former lawyer who now makes money from her Instagram page The Wayfarer, which has more than 100,000 followers – told the court she fled the country because she was so 'terrified' he would find her.
She blocked Keating on the social media platform after he shared extracts from the erotic S&M novel Fifty Shades of Grey.
However, he then began bombarding her with videos and messages over email and used another profile to continue viewing her posts, which he believed were secret messages to him.
Ms Saper tried to block his emails too but that just sent them to her spam folder.
In a video about her ordeal, posted at the time, Ms Saper also said she felt she was being 'hunted like prey'.
On his return to the UK in March 2023, Keating was arrested by police who found black rope and a tie in his suitcase.
Keating told police in an interview that he was not sexually attracted to Ms Saper, but said that 'she had shown an interest in him and there could be something there' between the two.
In videos he often referred to the influencer as his 'Spartan Queen'.
He continued to stalk Ms Saper from September to November 2024, when he lived in Horsham, West Sussex.
Keating posted a picture of a plane ticket from London to Bali with the caption 'round 2' on Instagram in November. He was subsequently arrested.
At the Portsmouth court, the jury deliberated for just two hours and, when reading the guilty verdict to Keating, Judge Michael Bowes KC said a prison sentence was 'inevitable'.
Closing the case, Alexandra Bull, prosecuting, described Keating as 'indulging in a wilful self-delusion' involving a 'one-dimensional' version of the influencer as he 'moved from follower to stalker'.
'He began to indulge in wilful self-delusion, all those genuine emotions he felt from following was not enough,' she said.
'The person he started fantasising about was entirely one-dimensional, they are a character he has never met.
'It is her job to make people feel better about themselves but that is just one part of Ms Saper.
'When Ms Saper's generic posts were not enough for him, he wanted to take it to the next level. What he wanted was her attention on him.'
Keating, a traffic worker who lived in his sister's garage in Havant, Hants, first contacted Ms Saper on Instagram in July 2022 with a 'weird and creepy' message to which the influencer responded: 'Dude, why are you following me if you don't like my content?'
The court was shown over an hour of footage from these videos in which Keating told Ms Saper to get 'kidnap insurance' and that he was going to 'spank' her.
He told her she was 'allowing him to run with it' regarding his contact with her, but added: 'Either that, or you're not interested and not watching these videos and I've lost my mind or something.'
In a video from December 2022, Keating said: 'You're going to have to reply to me eventually – there's talk about coming to Bali to get you.'
In February 2023, he did travel to Bali, posting a picture of the plane he was about to board with the caption 'Let the games begin'.
Ms Saper was so concerned that she fled to Laos to put distance between her and Keating.
Giving evidence at court, the influencer said she 'didn't think' he would actually make the trip to the tropical island.
'I blocked him on everything and never responded, so that was a pretty clear indication of not wanting contact,' Ms Saper added.
'I was aware that he was talking about coming to Bali, but I didn't think it would actually happen.
'I shared because I wanted my life back, there was nothing I could do staying in hiding,' she said. 'I was sick, I couldn't eat, I was depressed.'
In his own evidence, Keating had tried to claim the kidnap threats were just 'playful ridiculousness' and that the ordeal had had 'no adverse effect' on Ms Saper.
He tried to tell the court that because of the 'Anchorman' memes on his Instagram profile there was no way she would take him seriously. Keating will be sentenced at a later date.
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