Notorious online stalker who terrorised woman ordered to pay £1,500 compensation

Andreas Gkertsos sent his victim online messages looking to meet up with her and turned up at her workplace uninvited on several occasions.

Gkertsos, 22, used several aliases to bombard the woman with messages after she had blocked his initial contact with her around March 2021. The predator was eventually snared by police after he allowed officers to check his phone and it was found he was logged into two accounts connected with the stalking campaign.

Gkertsos, currently living in Dunfermline, Fife, pleaded guilty to engaging in a course of conduct that caused his victim fear and alarm when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month. He returned to the dock for sentencing on Tuesday where Sheriff John Cook placed him on a supervision order for two years and told he must carry out 140 hours of unpaid work.

He was also handed a non-harassment order banning him from having any contact with the woman for five years and ordered to pay her £1,500 in compensation.

Andreas Gkertsos hiding his face outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court | Alexander Lawrie

Gkertsos covered up his face in shame as he left the court building while three of his friends attempted to intimidate the press waiting outside for him. A written narrative into the events leading to his arrest was prepared by the Crown and handed to the sheriff.

The narration stated Gkertsos and the 23-year-old woman had met each other at “local car meets” and had been in contact on Snapchat and other social media platforms. The woman started to receive messages from an account belonging to a ‘Callum Murray’ who asked her to meet up with him though she refused all the requests in March 2021.

She then “saw the accused drive past her work on two separate occasions” which she was said to have “found strange at the time but was not concerned”. She then blocked the social media accounts belonging to ‘Murray’ believing them to be fake but continued to receive messages from him asking “what he had done wrong”.

The narration stated: “About 9pm on 20th October 2021, the victim was returning home after walking her dog. She observed the accused in his car drive past her address, turn in a nearby street, and drive back past her.

“The accused slowed down as he was driving past and the victim could see no obvious reason for this. These incidents were reported to police. On Thursday, November 11, 2021, police attended and noted statements from the victim and her mother following further messages that had been sent from 'Callum Murray'.

“The accused was cautioned and arrested regarding stalking. He was released without charge.”

The victim then saw Gkertsos’s car outside her workplace two weeks later and began receiving messages from an Instagram account under the name of ‘Kirsty Small’. Gkertsos later attended the capital’s Fettes police station to collect a car key and he allowed officers to examine his phone to make sure he was complying with bail conditions.

The narration stated: “He handed them his phone. It was found to be logged into the ‘Callum_murray99’ snapchat account and the ‘Kirsty Small’ [account]. Police cautioned and arrested the accused regarding stalking.

“The accused was conveyed to St Leonards Police Station at 1.41pm on the same date, the accused was cautioned and charged regarding stalking. He intimated he understood the charge and replied ‘It's not right’.”

Gkertsos escaped a jail term last year after he pleaded guilty to eight offences under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 and one of attempted extortion. He used a series of fake social media profiles to stalk women, blackmail them and leak explicit photos of them online.

The court was told the takeaway worker was just 17 when he began persuading the victims to send him intimate images of themselves to him online. He sent abusive messages and ordered them to send him cash or more pictures if they wanted him to stop and sent images of one of his victims to her mother when she refused to pay him.

Gkertsos also threatened to post pictures of one woman through her neighbours’ doors and posted explicit images of another victim on her employers’ social media after she refused to hand over cash.

He is one of the youngest people in Scotland to be investigated under revenge porn laws which were introduced in 2017. After pleading guilty to the abuse, Gkertsos was given a community payback order but then went on the run before being arrested again last month when he pled guilty to the latest offence involving Ms Cameron.