A jealous boyfriend has been imprisoned for “psychological abuse” after he banned his girlfriend from using Snapchat and threatened to kill her family if she left him.
Matthew Bailey, 24, ordered his selfie-loving girlfriend, Molly Cunliffe, 19, to stay away from exchanging messages with heterosexual men on Facebook and Instagram. He even told her she was not allowed to put kisses at the end of social media posts.
Bailey was so jealous that he would regularly check Molly’s mobile phone, tell her what to wear, and demanded she sends him pictures or goes on Facetime to prove she was at home or even asleep in bed. He dictated that the only male friends she could contact over social media had to be gay.
Bailey also bombarded the care assistant with phone calls demanding she calls him every day. Whenever she doesn’t answer his calls, he accuses her of cheating on him.
During one phone call recorded by a friend of Molly’s following an argument, Bailey warned her, saying: “You’ll get a car through your front window and I’ll stab you in the neck. You know what I’m capable of.”
He added: “Do not block my number then go home and shag. Tell your mum and dad to sit upstairs, I’ll drive a car through your gaff – take a picture to prove you’re outside having a cig.”
Their relationship only lasted for four weeks before Molly, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, tried to end it. But the obsessed boyfriend threatened to kill her family if she breaks up with him. After a burst of 30 calls in just one morning from her obsessed partner, Molly went to police to report.
At Manchester magistrates court, Bailey, from Horwich, near Bolton was jailed for six months after he was found guilty of engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship. He was also barred from contacting Molly for five years.
