"She has made herself absolutely scarce"
It has emerged that a convicted stalker is on the run in Ireland after she was jailed in her absence for breaching an order.
Farah Damji, aged 53, who was once dubbed “London’s most dangerous woman”, was jailed for five years in 2016 for stalking a churchwarden after meeting him on an online dating site.
Damji had made her victim’s life “complete hell” after he ignored her sexual advances.
While in her prison cell, Damji raised £5,000 asking for donations on Twitter to hire a top lawyer to appeal her conviction in November 2016.
Damji also published “character assassinations” online of individuals she was banned from referencing under the terms of her restraining order.
She then wrote a letter to a government body accusing the investigating officer from the case of “stalking and harassing her”.
Damji alleged that a police officer had “scared” her elderly mother by contacting her without permission in a message sent to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements.
Damji, who ran a New York City art gallery in the 1990s, was convicted in February 2020 of two counts of breaching the restraining order in April and June 2018.
However, she fled during the trial and she was jailed in her absence for 27 months in March after Judge Michael Gledhill said:
“She has made herself absolutely scarce so that the police cannot find her.
“In my view, this defendant is extremely manipulative.
“She has done her best to disrupt the smooth running of these proceedings from the moment she arrived at this court.
“She is playing the system and she continues to play the system, in my view.”
A European Arrest Warrant has since been issued to extradite Damji after it was revealed she had fled to Ireland.
She recently tweeted that she would no longer “submit to the English and Welsh criminal justice system”.
The judge said he is moving to Oxford Crown Court but wanted to ensure that the stalker was sent to him personally to deal with once she was tracked down.
Judge Gledhill added: “The reason I called this on is that I move from this court to Oxford, starting work at Oxford on 1 September, and I wanted to find out what is happening with Damji and to ensure that when she is arrested she is brought to Oxford for me to deal with breach of bail.
“There’s been some Twitter activity but apart from that nothing. At the moment I am without instructions as to what inquiries have been made.
“What I’m told is that she left the jurisdiction and has gone to what used to be called Eire.”
“I know that one of her tweets made it quite clear that she was not going to submit any further to the English and Welsh criminal justice system.
“I’m also told that an application has been put in place for a European Arrest warrant, but that has been submitted by the police presumably to the CPS and the last I heard was that it was sitting patiently on somebody’s desk at the CPS and I wanted to know why it was sitting there, why it’s not been pursued and therefore why she’s not been arrested.”
The case has been adjourned until July 30 for inquiries to be made into the issuing of the warrant and said that Damji would be jailed once she was found.
Judge Gledhill concluded: “As and when Damji is arrested she must be brought to Oxford for me to deal with and if she’s arrested in August I shall ask the judge dealing with her at this court to adjourn the breach of bail proceedings until she is taken to Oxford, because she will taken to prison as soon as she’s arrested to serve her sentence.”
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