Serial stalker who threatened to kill judge jailed

A man who bombarded a judge with death threats as part of a "campaign of psychological warfare" has been jailed.

Peter Johnson wrote abusive letters with racist, homophobic and neo-Nazi content to a Chester Crown Court judge after they sentenced him for stalking in 2019.

The 62-year-old wrote the letters under the name of a former cellmate who had defrauded him, police said.

Johnson, of Eaton near Congleton, Cheshire, was jailed for four years and two months.

He was found guilty after a trial of four counts of making threats to kill and six of sending malicious communications at Birmingham Crown Court.

Police discovered he was the real author of the hate mail after tracing where the letters had been posted.

He was jailed for two years in 2019 for five counts of stalking by a Cheshire crown court judge, and also banned from returning to his home in Alsager.

In that case, Johnson had written letters pretending to be his neighbours while claiming they were Nazis, terrorists, and child abusers.

You can hear more about what happened on BBC Radio Stoke's documentary Neighbour from Hell.

While in prison he befriended a man from Newcastle who was serving time for fraud and had been sentenced by the same judge.

Following his release, Johnson was defrauded by his former cellmate, losing £15,000, while led him to seek "the ultimate revenge", the force said.

He sent death threats and abuse to the judge who sentenced him and three prison governors who managed the jails where he served, under the name of his former cellmate.

Johnson was arrested after officers found the letters were posted hundreds of miles from where the fraudster was living, but he denied penning them.

The next day, CCTV caught him posting another abusive letter in Chester after driving to the city from his home by Congleton.

Det Seg Paul Davis of Cheshire Police said Johnson was a "dangerous individual" whose "elaborate plan" was brought down by a "catalogue of damning evidence".

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