The victim of a 'depraved' stalker who sent her AI photos of her naked today said she fears he will be released from prison under the government's controversial early release scheme.
Paris Shears, 31, bravely told how she endured a 'despicable' campaign of harassment from her 'trusted' family friend Jakob Ward that compelled her to flee her home with her three children and live in Airbnbs.
Ms Shears said 28-year-old Ward – who she considered like a 'brother' – was secretly posing as her ex-partner and bombarding her on Instagram.
Ward sent Ms Shears AI-generated photos of her naked and sent her terrifying packages containing her own underwear and a bag containing his semen.
Jakob Ward, from Tidworth, Wiltshire, admitted stalking the woman causing serious alarm or distress, creating a purported intimate image of an adult, theft, possessing cannabis and possessing a knuckleduster.
Ward pleaded guilty and was remanded into custody for six weeks until his sentencing last Friday. He was jailed for 32 months at Winchester Crown Court.
Judge Christopher Parker KC described the campaign as 'despicable, depraved' and 'completely incomprehensible'.
Ms Shears said: 'Whilst I am relieved he is behind bars, the reality is that under the government's early release arrangements, he could be back in the community far sooner than that sentence suggests.
Paris Shears fears her tormentor will be free in a matter of months under early-release measures brought in by Labour
Jakob Ward had known his victim since she was 16 and she considered him like a 'brother'
'People convicted for less than four years will be up for release after one third, which I think is just abysmal.
'The fact that domestic abuse offenders, stalkers, coercive controllers, they are not excluded from that is disgusting.
She said that after taking into account time served on remand, Ward could be set free in nine months under Labour's early-release scheme.
Ms Shears, a domestic abuse campaigner, added: 'It's horrendous because the reality is I've got nine months, if that now - a nine-month deadline to move, to restart my life somewhere else and rebuild it again.
'I walked into court hoping to see justice served. Instead, I walked out feeling like another victim of the very system I have spent so long fighting to change.
'His sentence will end long before the consequences of his actions do.'
A court heard Ward used an Instagram alias to send AI generated images of Ms Shears, from Southampton, Hampshire.
Ms Shears was left 'genuinely terrified' for her life and slept with a knife under her pillow as he requested to meet her.
Ms Shears, a domestic abuse campaigner, said she left court 'feeling like another victim of the very system I have spent so long fighting to change'
Ward bombarded Ms Shears with messages like this one on Instagram, using a pseudonym
Ward also sent Ms Shears her own underwear and a package containing sex toys.
The defendant, who was the father of her nephew, used AI to deliberately impersonate another man but when she asked to be left alone he replied that he had items belonging to her and sent her own What3Words location.
Ms Shears went to the police station, fearing for her safety, and while she was there received another message from the anonymous account saying: 'Don't worry, I'm not a threat.'
He was identified through DNA analysis of the semen he sent to her.
She said it was 'mind-blowing' to discover the man who looked after her home when she was on holiday was her tormentor.
In a statement read to the court, Ms Shears said the campaign destroyed her sense of safety.
She said: 'The thing that frightened me most was the belief that somebody was going to break into my home, rape and kill me.'
Ward, from Tidworth, Wiltshire, admitted stalking the woman causing serious alarm or distress, creating a purported intimate image of an adult, theft, possessing cannabis and possessing a knuckleduster and was jailed for 32 months.
Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Christopher Parker KC described the campaign as 'despicable, depraved' and 'completely incomprehensible'.
Ms Shears is a domestic abuse campaigner who has campaigned for changes to the justice system and travelled to Parliament on October 19 after a petition she started attracted more than 107,000 signatures.
She is calling for perpetrators who plead guilty at the last minute not to receive a reduced sentence. It comes after she was abused by her ex-partner, who pleaded guilty on the day of his trial.
Around 1,350 prisoners including violent offenders, domestic abusers and burglars have been freed early in two waves this month under Labour's early release scheme aimed at freeing up space in overcrowded jails.
Dozens are thought to have been recalled already after breaching their licences or reoffending.
Labour also released more than 70,000 under an early-release scheme launched two months after the 2024 election.
A Government spokesman said: 'We inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse, and had we failed to act, the police would have been forced to halt arrests, putting victims and communities at untold risk.
'To protect the public, we're putting thousands more neighbourhood police officers on our streets, introducing the toughest-ever licence controls, expanding electronic tagging, investing in probation at record levels, and delivering 14,000 more prison places.'