London — A social media influencer who admitted bombarding Premier League star Mason Mount with messages in a four-month stalking campaign after he broke off their relationship was spared jail on Tuesday.
Orla Melissa Sloan, 21, was instead told by to pay the England midfielder £300 ($383, 350 euros) compensation after last week pleading guilty to stalking him and his former teammate Billy Gilmour.
She also admitted at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London to harassing fellow Blues star Ben Chilwell and was ordered to pay him £300, and will pay Gilmour £500.
Chairwoman of the bench Alison Gowman said the Instagram influencer, who called herself "Devil Baby", had engaged in "sustained and deliberate attempts to harass and stalk" the footballers.
She received a 12-week prison term, suspended for 18 months, and must complete 200 hours of unpaid work.
The court heard she slept with Mount after they met at a party at his England teammate Chilwell's home in November 2020.
Prosecutor Jason Seetal said they stayed in contact for around six months before Mount "decided that the relationship was not going to progress".
"Upon informing Miss Sloan of this he has been subjected to a bombardment of messages," he said. "He began asking her to stop messaging him before blocking the number.
"He then began to receive messages from new numbers and each time he would block those numbers there would be messages from a different number."
Seetal said a total of 21 different numbers were used to contact Mount and that the 24-year-old player was "concerned she had an obsession or fixation with him and he didn't know what she was capable of".
In a statement Mount said: "Miss Sloan knows roughly where I live and where I train. I'm worried as if she is unable to contact me she might turn up at my training centre."
The court heard that Scotland midfielder Gilmour, who joined Brighton from Chelsea in September, had initially exchanged messages with Sloan before telling her he did not want their contact to continue and did not have a relationship with her.
But she claimed to have become pregnant in allegations described in court as "completely fictitious".
Sloan pleaded guilty to causing "serious alarm or distress" by stalking Gilmour and admitted stalking Mount as well as causing harassment to Chilwell.
AFP