A NEWPORT chef was jailed for year for stalking a woman he became obsessed with after seeing her at a Halifax Bank.

Emdad Ali, 51, of Corporation Road, Newport, pleaded guilty to stalking Halifax Bank worker Rebecca Ruff and to a charge of putting her manager Jeremy Brown in fear of violence.

During his sentencing at Newport Crown Court yesterday the court heard how Ali, who was present via video link from Bristol, began stalking Miss Ruff over a seven-month period from February to September this year.

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it was one of the first convictions in Gwent since the new stalking guidelines came into effect this year under the Protection of Freedoms act 2012.

Prosecutor Tom Roberts told the court how Ali began attending the Abergavenny branch of the bank three times a week and started to ask staff to go to the Juboraj restaurant in Newport where he worked.

When the staff went to the restaurant he gave Miss Ruff a bunch of flowers and showed her a photo taken from her Facebook profile calling her ‘beautiful.’ The court heard how the group left shortly after feeling that his behaviour was ‘strange.’ Ali then began going into the branch more frequently, asking if the meal had been OK.

On discussing the matter with her manager, Mr Brown, Miss Ruff told Ali she had a boyfriend but this did not deter Ali, whose behaviour escalated so that he was phoning the bank four times a day.

Mr Brown contacted Ali to warn him to back off whereby Ali threatened him by saying that he would break both his legs and kill him.

Ali told Mr Brown that he would tell everyone he was a racist if he ‘made trouble’ for him.

The court also heard how Ali told Miss Ruff he knew where she lived and was going to buy a house on her street so he could see her every day.

Mr Roberts said that Ali had sent a bunch of flowers to the branch for Miss Ruff with the message: “All my love and friendship.”

On another occasion Ali tried to join a table in an Abergavenny pub where Miss Ruff was sitting with her colleagues.

Ali was also found driving through Nantyglo where Miss Ruff lived saying he was looking for her and that she was his girlfriend who he wanted to marry.

In her statement Miss Ruff said she had felt “vulnerable” and “not at ease” since Ali began stalking. She said it was beginning to control her life.

The prosecution added that Ali made references to Miss Ruff and Mr Brown at the Newport branch of the bank where they sometimes worked.

Mr Brown said he was always expecting to see him walking into the bank.

Jeremy Jenkins, defending, said that Ali had “genuinely believed” that Miss Ruff was interested in him.

He said that he was a “popular chef in South Wales” and ran a spice shop on Corporation Road in Newport which had to be closed.

Recorder Mark Powell QC said: “You have destroyed the lives of these two people for the period you subjected them to harassment.”

He sentenced him to 12 months’ imprisonment. He will serve half in prison and an unlimited restraining order was imposed, which bans Ali from contacting Miss Ruff and Mr Brown.

He is also prevented from entering Nantyglo and Abergavenny, and from loitering outside the Halifax Bank in Newport.

He was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £100.