COWERING in her house, afraid to go outside, Grace knew it was only a matter of time before Karl Chads came to kick down her door.
Yet just months earlier, the idea that she would have had to flee from her home, a fugitive in her own life, would have been unthinkable.
Grace had her life torn apart by a colleague who stalked her[/caption]
Karl Chads broke into her house multiple times[/caption]
Chads was finally jailed this year[/caption]
But when stalker Karl screamed down the phone he was going to rape her, she knew he meant it.
Her pleas to the police were ignored – forcing her to take matters into her own hands.
And all the while, Grace struggled to make sense of how someone who’d only met her three times had become such an obsessive stalker.
Now, her terrifying ordeal will be told in the new Channel Four documentary Catching My Stalker, which airs on Sunday night.
Bid writer Grace, from Watford, had just turned 30 when Karl, 40, joined her company on a project.
People were quick to notice his strange demeanor, and the way he would often talk over women.
“I thought he looked like a politician, [I was thinking] it’s going to be a struggle to have any conversation with him,” she recalled of the first time they spoke face to face, in May 2023.
“But by the end of the conversation he’d actually been quite nice, and seemed to have things in common with me.”
Then, in October 2023, Grace and the rest of the team enjoyed afternoon tea at the Ritz in London.
Karl stuttered as he spoke to Grace. She could tell he was nervous, but dismissed the notion that he was attracted to her – and after all, she was in a committed relationship with her boyfriend Daryl, 34.
“Within a few days of the Ritz I received a message from Karl. He wanted to text on personal numbers, so he could let me know if I needed something for the project.
“I gave him my number to be nice. I didn’t think we’d talk.”
But it wasn’t long until a text from Karl came through, asking what she had planned that day. Grace kept it as generic as she could, but Karl’s mask was slowly slipping.
“One of the messages was me saying I used to be heavier than I was,” remembered Grace.
“He replied, ‘You were still probably as heart-stoppingly beautiful as you are today.’”
Mask slips
Grace told him she was in a relationship. “I want to take his place,” came the blunt reply.
Her gentle letting down of his advances not working, she was firm – and then Karl flipped.
Chads subjected her to relentless abuse when he found out she had a boyfriend[/caption]
Each message left Grace more and more terrified[/caption]
“Next time, make it clear if the deal is ‘Karl opens his wallet, Grace opens her legs,’ he said.
“Common sl*t,” came another message. Another threatened he’d get her fired, yet another blamed her for leading him on.
He even posted a private message she sent him to a work group chat, forcing her to lodge a complaint with her boss.
But message after message, call after call kept coming through – one minute a threat, the next a plea for her to be with him.
And whatever Karl said, each buzz of the phone left Grace more and more terrified.
She reported his threats to the police, but shockingly was told they can’t do anything – as she had never explicitly told him not to contact her.
If I block him, I’m not going to have the evidence to show the police…so I just had to take it
Grace
Karl even told her he’s resigned from his job, but despite telling him to stop his abuse continued.
“If I block him, I’m not going to have the evidence to show the police,” said Grace. “So I just had to take it.”
Eventually, after collecting screengrabs and voice notes, Grace and Daryl thought they had enough evidence and headed to the station together, phone in hand.
Such was their relief when the sergeant said they’d charge Karl, they celebrated at home with a bottle of fizz.
Left alone
Their nightmare seemed to be over – almost.
“Grace still had this element of depression hanging over her,” Daryl recalled.
“The one thing that gave me comfort at this point is there’s no evidence he necessarily knows her address.”
Grace and her boyfriend Daryl never expected their lives to be turned upside down[/caption]
Chads had only met Grace three times[/caption]
Grace didn’t think he knew her address until he started sending her gifts[/caption]
Only two weeks after Karl resigned, Grace heard her doorbell ring.
It was a parcel, and a handwritten note, reading: “I thought we had the potential to develop into a friendship and a relationship one day.
And signed at the bottom was the name: “Karl”.
Grace was terrified enough that her stalker knew where she lived – but what was in the parcel was even more petrifying.
Her flat was decorated with all sorts of skull-shaped items, from decorations to candle holders.
And inside the parcel was a £190 skull wallet from Alexander McQueen.
“That just shook me,” Grace recalled.
“I’m looking around my flat, and I’ve got nothing but skulls in there, but no one would know that.”
The police said that they would arrest him…but they never did
Grace
Their panic increasing, Grace and Daryl went back to the police. But it didn’t take long for them to realise that they were more alone than they realised.
“All I could do to defend myself was report it to the police. The police said that they would arrest him. But they never did,” she said.
“I tried to get a restraining order from the police. They said no, because I wasn’t an ex.”
In an unbelievable turn of events, when police officers did eventually come round and visit, it wasn’t to help Grace at all – but to tell Daryl off for harassing them.
“We realised it was us versus Karl,” said Daryl.
“There was nowhere safe to go, and there was nothing being done about it,” added Grace.
Sick voicemails
Police were slow to collect evidence, and Grace and Daryl both knew it would be a matter of when, not if, things would escalate.
They were faced with a horrifying realisation – that the police would probably only step in when it was too late.
A doorbell camera was installed, and she even began to practice martial arts.
Despite going to the police the abuse continued[/caption]
Grace picked up martial arts to get ready to defend herself[/caption]
A bouquet of roses was accompanied by a deranged letter[/caption]
The skull wallet also came with a sinsiter hand-written letter[/caption]
All the while, Grace was still being bombarded with messages and begging voicemails from withheld numbers.
At the start of December, a bouquet of red roses arrived at her door, along with a rambling handwritten letter.
And by now, Karl’s relentless harassment was taking its toll – not just on Grace but on her loved ones too.
“She was terrified to go anywhere,” her best friend Beth recalled.
“She’d rarely even go to the corner shop. She didn’t even go on a run anymore. She just stayed in the house, out of fear.
There was nowhere safe to go, and there was nothing being done about it
Grace Smith
Her relationship with Daryl was also under strain.
Karl was all they could talk about. Grace was frustrated, thinking Daryl didn’t believe Karl would actually turn up at her home. Daryl, in turn, feared his beloved girlfriend would forget how to live her life.
Twisted threats
Two weeks later, the day Grace feared finally came.
It began with another call from a withheld number and the usual desperate wailing from Karl.
Grace shouted back down the line. But when Daryl spoke, Karl flipped.
“You pr**k,” screamed Karl. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.
“I will blow your brains out. I will rape your girlfriend in front of you, you f***ing c**t.”
Knowing this was the moment they’d dreaded, they fled to Daryl’s.
After threatening to rape her Chads arrived at her house[/caption]
The stalker tried to kick down her door and broke in through a window[/caption]
Fortunately Grace had left the house before he got in[/caption]
Karl then tried to call again, more than forty times in one hour, leaving voicemails with threats to kill the pair and rape Grace.
Terrified, she called the police again – but at this point, she felt only an attack would prod them into arresting him.
“I got a call from the police saying Grace’s place has been broken into. It was a neighbour who heard the break in, and they called the police,” remembered Daryl.
Footage from their doorbell camera shows Karl furiously hammering on her door with his fist, then leaning back and kicking it repeatedly with as much force as he can.
Failing to get in this way, he heads off to the side, smashing his way in through a window.
A devastated Grace and Daryl arrive to find her home has been ransacked.
But most chilling of all is what he chose to steal.
He’d just attached himself to all my memories. It felt like nothing was mine
Grace
In the doorbell video, Karl is seen calmly walking away from their house, Grace’s precious journal tucked tightly under her arm.
“It was like, ‘I’ve claimed this trophy,” recalled Grace.
“My closest family and friends do not know about my journal. The only way he would have known where it was is if he had watched me through my bedroom window.
“He’d just attached himself to all my memories. It felt like nothing was mine.”
Scarred for life
Now back at Daryl’s with his friends for back up, they waited – and at 3am, he returned.
After a frantic call to 999, they rushed over to find the street awash with blue lights.
Karl was finally arrested. Police found he had brought with him two glasses, a bottle of wine and seven extra-lube condoms.
Chads had seven condoms in his bag when he arrived at Grace’s house[/caption]
Doorbell camera footage captured the devastating aftermath[/caption]
Chads ransacked her home[/caption]
Thankfully, police also recovered Grace’s journal.
Karl was charged with two counts of stalking, two burglaries, property damage, and trespassing to commit a relevant sexual offence.
At his trial in June 2024, Karl pleaded not guilty.
“I had to testify on my birthday,” remembered Grace.
“I didn’t want Karl to see me. I didn’t want to further inflame his obsessions, I wasn’t sure if he was going to get out or not.”
Despite Karl turning the truth on his head, telling the court they’d had a sexual relationship, he was found guilty on all counts.
I’m always going to be vigilant, watching my back, forever
Grace
He was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison, given an indefinite restraining order and made to sign the sex offences register.
But Grace will still be scarred for life.
“I feel very very fortunate, being in the survivor camp. Whilst I’m pleased he’s got the sentence he’s got, it didn’t have to get to this point,” she said.
“I’m always going to be vigilant, watching my back, forever.
“I’m not the same person that I was before.”
Hertfordshire Constabulary admitted that their initial response to the reports did not meet the required standards and has made efforts to improve how it handles stalking reports.
Catching My Stalker airs on Sunday at 10.20pm on Channel 4
