A STALKER who became obsessed with a Stroud couple and made their lives 'a living hell' has been jailed.

At the end of January this year Nina Tiptaft, 24, bombarded the couple with scores of phone calls, emails and social media messages, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

Among other threats, she said she would kill the couple and burn down their home.

At the time Tiptaft, of Ridgemont Road, Stroud, was already subject to a suspended prison sentence imposed for similar previous harassment of the same victims, the court heard.

Tiptaft admitted two offences of harassing the couple in breach of a restraining order plus charges of stalking and sending a grossly offensive letter between January 24 and 31.

Jailing her for a total of one year for all the offences, Judge Rupert Lowe said he had read about the problems Tiptaft had suffered in childhood and he accepted a psychiatrist's view that she has significant autistic characteristics and probably a personality disorder.

But he said she has a normal IQ, knows what she is doing and she had expressed no real desire to stop offending.

Tiptaft, who appeared at court via video link from remand, sat throughout the hearing bent forward in her chair with only the top of her head visible but at that point, without looking up, she said "I want to stop."

Judge Lowe explained that the background to the case was that Tiptaft and the woman became acquaintances in 2018.

"She would offer you help and support but she was also alarmed by certain aspects of your behaviour," he said.

"You became obsessed with her and her partner."

The judge said Tiptaft sent handwritten letters to the woman's previous place of work, began contacting her on social media and sometimes sent 100 emails a day and also called her.

Last June the couple went to the police.

A resolution was put in place with conditions that Tiptaft must not contact them, which she obeyed for a few days but she then the harassment started again.

In July and August last year she bombarded them with phone calls and visited them.

Tiptaft also called Stroud police station several times threatening to kill the woman and her son.

When she was arrested in September she threatened to throw bricks through their windows and set fire to their property and keep going until she had killed them, the court heard.

A six-month suspended prison sentence was imposed with a drug rehabilitation order plus a two year restraining order.

But three months into the orders she once again began calling the couple and harassing them.

"I don't want to upset you unnecessarily but the fact is that you have made these peoples' lives a living hell," said the judge.

"I really understand that you have your difficulties but I have to protect the public."

"I am afraid you have now reached the end of the road.

"You have been given all these warnings - you have been told again and again and you have insisted on doing it.

"The courts have a duty to protect the public from obsessive, threatening, life stopping acts like yours."

Steve Young, defending during the hearing on Friday, April 19, said Tiptaft had found her time on remand in custody since January 'extremely difficult' and 'extremely punishing' and she was now utterly ashamed of her offences, he concluded.