Wigan stalking victim threatened with being scarred with acid and murdered speaks out

A young mum has told of her “months of hell” being stalked by a Wigan ex who threatened to scar her in acid and kill her.
The victim (played here by a model) says she is living in fear to this dayThe victim (played here by a model) says she is living in fear to this day
The victim (played here by a model) says she is living in fear to this day

Maxine Roscoe said Scott King’s campaign of terror had included sending more than 1,000 anonaymous texts and calls - including 281 in one hour! - trying to hack her social media and attempting to get into her home in the middle of the night.

She says she is still living in fear after borough magistrates gave the 35-year-old from Ashton a suspended prison sentence and hit him with a restraining order preventing his having any further contact with her.

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But she thinks it right that King wasn’t sent directly to jail and says that incarceration wouldn’t help him and it is medical assistance that he needs.

The 28-year-old spoke out because she said she wanted to raise awareness of such crimes and warn other women of his behaviour.

Maxine, a psychology student and NHS health care assistant, and King, who had been a pharmaceuticals delivery driver until he lost his job in the pandemic, met through mutual friends four years ago and with Maxine living in Preston and King in Wigan they decided to move in together halfway between in Chorley.

They both have children from other relationships and Maxine said that for the first couple of years things went well. But then it deteriorated after she discovered he had cheated on her. She says King started being violent and aggressive towards her and by last October she decided to break things off after he set fire to an album of pictures he had bought her along with some of her underwear.

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They stayed in contact for a couple of months because of the children but she says that by Christmas she had decided it needed to end completely. It was after this that matters began to get terrifyingly worse.

Maxine said: “He made the next three months of my life hell. He was bombarding me with calls, messages and texts, always pretending to be someone else, but it was obvious who it was.

“He was making threats, turning up at my house, chucking stones at the window, trying to get in during the small hours. He would ping his location to my phone so I could see where he was - generally heading towards me - and he would try to hack my social media and try to find out where I was all the time.

“He was all over my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, into my email address and reading through confidential emails. He was on my Findmyphone (and turned on track my location), set me up on Tinder accounts, got at my Uber Eats and Just Eat accounts, my Netflix my Spotify and he created fake profiles. It was all about trying to terrorise me while not wanting to let go.”

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Maxine went to the civil court and obtained a non-molestation order against King. But the messages kept coming and on February 22 matters came to a head when she received messages saying “I am going to ****ing kill you. Up close and personal, you are going to feel everything” and another which said “You are not going to be able to look at your face in the mirror. You can buy stuff for as little as £22,” which she, friends and police took to mean he intended to disfigure her with a corrosive substance.

King, of Yewdale Road, Ashton, was arrested that day but denied the accusations of stalking. Officers seized his phone for forensic examination and then released him.

Within two days Maxine said he had gone on Facebook to ask if anyone could lend him a phone because he couldn’t use his own at the moment. Clearly someone responded because very soon Maxine was being bombarded with more anonymous messages.

She contacted police once more and an officer went round to visit him at his mother’s house. Again he denied sending the messages but the policewoman rang the number that had sent the threats to Maxine and a phone went off in the house.

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Maxine was also able to supply screen grabs of written threats as further evidence.

The court was told that in all she had made at least 15 statements to police and rung the non-emergency 101 number up to 100 times during King’s reign of terror. When he appeared in the dock King admitted to conduct amounting to stalking and was given a year-long prison sentence, but it was suspended for two years. The chair of the magistrates told King that he was receiving a custodial sentence because “the breach involved threats to life and disfigurement”.

He was also given a two-year supervision order which includes a better relationship programme and 20 days of rehabilitation activities.

A three-year restraining order was imposed preventing him from approaching his victim and entering the village where she lives.

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King was also ordered to pay the woman £200 in compensation and £128 to victim services. The hearing was told that his actions had caused great distress to Maxine and her daughter.

Maxine said: “I am completely accepting of the sentence as long as he stays away. He has never done anything like this before and knows that if he comes at me again he will be locked up. I don’t think being put in prison would help though - he needs serious medical help.

“Meanwhile I’m trying to get my own help. I don’t sleep at night because I am living in fear that he will, after all, follow up on his threats.

“A court order and bail conditions did not stop him approaching me last time. I just hope and pray he has learnt his lesson now. I wanted to tell my story to raise awareness and enable future females to be warned about his behaviour as no one deserves to go through what my daughter and I went through.”

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