Editor’s note: In March 2021, solicitors for Mr Bartlett told the Worcester News that their client had been successful in his appeal to the police to remove the caution against his name. Mr Bartlett had consistently denied the allegation against him.  His solicitors submitted that there was insufficient evidence to prove the allegation and the caution had been unjustified, but was wrongly used as a bargaining tool in return for the release of computers which had been seized by the police and were important to Mr Bartlett’s business.  The caution was withdrawn in December 2020 and the police also agreed to pay Mr Bartlett for his legal costs and damage to his electronic devices.

 

 

An employer has denied making a fake online profile advertising a former employee as a prostitute – even though he admitted it to the police and was given an official caution for harassment.

Sam Watts complained to the police when she received upsetting calls following the posting online of the fake profile using her photo, location and mobile phone number.

Officers spoke to Mark Bartlett, her former boss at a dog training firm, and he accepted a police caution for harassment, which involves admitting the offence.

He now says he was not really responsible and he wants to clear his name.

Mrs Watts left Hound Helpers Ltd, in Lower Moor, near Pershore after five years as a freelance dog walker. The fake profile appeared shortly afterwards.

She said: “I’m fine now, but when someone does that, you just feel like your privacy has been violated. At the end of the day I wouldn’t dream of doing that to anyone, and it’s hard to imagine how someone can even come up with the idea.

“My phone was ringing constantly until the profile could be removed which wasn’t an easy task. It took three days. I didn’t want to change my number because that just makes people like that think they’ve won”.

Mrs Watts said the experience knocked her confidence.

She said: “I felt that everyone was looking at me. I am a woman who works on her own a lot and the type of profile that was posted wouldn’t bring a very nice man with it.”

Mrs Watts husband Richard said his wife was “very scared,” adding: "At one stage she couldn’t leave the house. It was awful.”

Mrs Watts said the photo used in the profile showed her face and someone would easily be able to recognize her from it.

West Mercia Police confirmed a 49 year old man had received a caution after reports of harassment without violence.

Despite the experience Mrs Watts is determined to move on: “I stood up to them, and I did it in the right way. I can hold my head up high. I don’t want it to happen to the next woman. People need to understand you can’t expect to treat people like this and get away with it. The police were very supportive and helpful.”

“I am a 35 year old woman who enjoys life, and gets on with things. I have great friends, a supportive husband and a good outlook on the future.”

She said when she left the company, some of the clients chose to follow her, which she believes upset her employer.

Mr Bartlett said Mrs Watts who worked for him for five years had signed a contract to say that she wouldn’t take clients. He claims she visited his clients and undercut Hound Helpers.

But Mrs Watts denied that a contract ever existed and says she never undercut the business.

Mr Bartlett said he only accepted the caution because the police would otherwise need to take away several of the computers in the house for up to 12 months. Mr Bartlett said his company would have gone under without them, and one of the computers contained his son’s final year university work. He claims his solicitor told him he would have to accept the caution if he wanted to keep the computers.

Mr Bartlett said he is taking legal action against the police over the caution and what he says was an incorrect charge.

He said the police didn’t look at any of the computers and there was no proof that he had uploaded the profile.

He claims the only evidence was the profile on Mrs Watts phone.