A City corporate lawyer hounded his ex-girlfriend with fictitious online dating profiles, telling her what a “good guy” sounded to her former lover.
Matthew Howells, 31, an associate of Bishopsgate’s international US law firm Cooley, defended himself through those false identities, using them to track his former partner’s movements.
While posing as someone called “Alex” on the online dating app Hinge, he even told her that her ex was definitely not a stalker.
The Bristol Law School graduate, who works on the firm’s venture capital team, suffered a breakdown in the dock at Wimbledon Magistrates Court when his lawyer outlined his life achievements.
Howells, who arrived at court in a BMW convertible and lives in Clapham, pleaded guilty to stalking the woman between March 31 and July 8 last year.
Matthew Howells, 31, received 12 months community service, which includes a 10-day rehabilitation requirement and must pay £500 compensation to his ex-girlfriend
He received 12 months community service, which includes a 10-day rehabilitation requirement and must pay £500 compensation to his ex-girlfriend.
Howells was also subject to a two-year restraining order, which banned him from contacting her or going to her address, and was also ordered to pay £85 and a £114 victim surcharge.
After the breakup, he bombarded his ex-girlfriend with unwanted calls and texts – even creating the fake online profile “Alex” on dating app Hinge – which the victim thought was a real suitor.
When she told ‘Alex’ via online chats that she was sunbathing on Clapham Common, Howells suddenly appeared twenty minutes later and continued his attempts to win her back into his affections.
While also posing as “Alex” and deliberately matching with her online, he claimed to know her ex-boyfriend from playing soccer, described him as a “good guy” and dismissed her suggestion that her ex was a stalker.
She also matched with ‘Jake’ online, but suspected it was the defendant posing as another date and broke off contact.
“I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. I don’t know what will stop him,” she told the court in her victim impact statement. “I don’t trust dating apps anymore and I don’t trust my friends anymore.
“This has created anxiety and affected my work and I have had to cancel my job,” she added. “I want a restraining order for life.”
Howells was arrested on June 17 last year and has not contacted his ex-girlfriend since
District Attorney Harriet James told the court that the couple had been in a relationship but had broken up due to Howells’ infidelity.
The victim told police, “We broke up on March 31 because he cheated on me and I told him to leave me alone.
“I blocked him on Instagram and didn’t answer his calls and blocked all contact with him.”
She asked a roommate to hand over Howells’ belongings to him and when he got her on the phone, she told him, “F*** off,” the court was told.
‘He emailed her and she didn’t reply and called her to meet up,’ Ms James explains. “He came to her flat uninvited and went through the common door and her flatmate gave him his belongings.
“The defendant continued to send more emails and calls, only stopping for a period of time when he knew she was in Dubai.
He asked to meet when she returned and on April 12, as she walked to work, he began to follow her, part of the evidence that the defense will not accept.
‘Mr Howells asked to meet her in a pub and near work she found him sitting outside a pub and they talked for three hours.
He told her he wanted to send her a song he wrote and on another occasion he was outside her house again.
“The complainant also encountered Mr. Howells at her local subway station when he told her, ‘I’m going the same way,’ after which she contacted her to go to a rock concert with him.
“She cut off all contact but came home one day to find flowers, a chocolate bunny and a card at her door,” Ms James added.
“She then ran into him” at her local grocery store and spent the next day together all day.
Feeling vulnerable while staying in her flat because of Howells, she once made different sleeping arrangements and the defendant asked, “Where did you spend the night?” Your curtains weren’t closed.’
She admitted weakness in a drunken moment led to her reaching out to Howells because she “missed him” and he stayed the night, but then they broke up again.
“He had a breakdown and started crying,” the prosecutor explained, adding that Howells would deliberately leave personal items, such as his watch, in the flat to give him an excuse to return.
On one day in May, she received six missed calls from him, and on May 15, there were eight.
‘Mr. Howells started using a new number, on which the complainant unknowingly picked up and on 17 May he was sitting on a bench outside her work when she left and asked for a drink.’
On May 21, she matched a ‘Jake’ on an online dating app. “Their text conversations made her suspicious,” Ms James said.
The next day she matched with ‘Alex’ and later told him she worked in Clapham and was on the common. Twenty minutes later, this defendant appeared while sunbathing.
While taking on the ‘Alex’ dating profile, Mr. Howells claimed he knew who she was dating and said, ‘He’s a good guy and doesn’t stalk you.’
In June she received another call from a new number and that was the defendant. She told him, “Stop stalking me or I’ll call the police.”
‘She called the Stalking Helpline and they advised her to contact the police.
“There is an incredibly high degree of planning here in setting up dating profiles and matching with the complainant on dating sites,” the prosecutor concludes. “There was a lot of stress.”
Howells was arrested on June 17 last year and has not contacted his ex-girlfriend since.
“As a lawyer, he is at great risk of being suspended or fired from his American company,” Kevin Smith defended himself with a detective character reference.
“He’s the first generation of his family to go to college and feels like he’s let everyone down,” says Smith, a graduate of the University of the West of England.
‘He helps his parents and brother and spends £5,000 a month on other people’s rent and he does volunteer work with St Mungo’s and Citizens Advice.
“When he got his current job, there were a thousand other applicants.”
“He is at low risk of committing an offense or causing serious harm, according to probation.”
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