Lydia Abdelmalek ‘catfish’ stalking appeal to be heard in 2021
A stalker who posed as a Home And Away star to carry out a twisted campaign of harassment that ended with a victim taking her own life will appeal her conviction.
Police & Courts
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A stalker who posed as a Home And Away heartthrob to “catfish” her victims will appeal her conviction in June next year, more than two years after she was originally sentenced to jail.
Lydia Abdelmalek was sentenced to two years and nine months prison for six counts of stalking women while impersonating TV star Lincoln Lewis.
The Melbourne conwoman’s twisted campaign of harassment spanned almost four years from May 2011 and left one victim so traumatised she took her own life.
Abdelmalek immediately launched an appeal against her sentence in June last year and has been on bail since.
Appearing via video link in the County Court on Thursday, Abdelmalek watched on as the court heard almost nine hours of her interview with police would be played during her appeal.
Twenty witnesses will also be called, including six complainants and five police officers.
The case, scheduled for June 15, will run for up to six weeks.
The court heard e-crime investigators have spent the past several months trawling through thousands of documents in preparation for the hearing.
Abdelmalek was found guilty of pretending to be Lewis to woo her victims into believing he was in love with them, while harassing them with hundreds of phone calls and text messages a day.
One of the women took her own life in October 2018, but wrote a statement beforehand detailing her suffering.
The woman said she felt tortured for the “sick fascination, perverse pleasure and unhealthy satisfaction” of her tormentor.
“I have been traumatised beyond belief, pounded with relentless abuse over a long period of time,” she wrote.
“The sheer extent and intensity of the stalking over three years … has had a devastating and lasting effect on my life.”
Abdelmalek was sentenced to a non-parole period of one year and nine months.
The matter will return to court in June.
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