Former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp speaks out on 'grim reaper’ stalker and moment they met
11.07.2023 - 16:09
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp has opened up about her two-year stalking ordeal and the moment she saw him for the first time.
Ravinderjit Dhillon sent messages to the Corrie actress calling himself ‘the grim reaper’ and used 25 aliases to contact the actress online threatening violence. He firsted started contacting her in October 2018.
Dhillon, 30, was convicted of stalking involving fear of violence after a trial in April and was due to be sentenced this week.
Nicola, who played Pat Phelan's daughter Nicola Rubinstein in the soap, appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday to discuss the ordeal - and the problems she faced during the police investigation.
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The 34-year-old also spoke on the ITV show of the moment she froze in fear after realising she was stood behind Dhillon in a queue.
Nicola told Susanna Reid and Ed Balls: “You want to know if you're going to be able to take care of yourself if he was to approach you in the street. That was the big thing."
“My main question was, ‘Would he be able to carry me?’ and that's devastating. Because with these kinds of crimes, when he's kept anonymous, they become every single person that you meet. He was every guy at a bus stop. He was the person at work who looked at me funny. He was the guy in the supermarket. He just became everybody.”
Nicola told the show that she knew nothing whatsoever about her stalker’s identity for seven months and said she pleaded with the police to tell her more.
She said: “When I got the phone call, saying that he'd been arrested, I was so relieved. I thought, ‘Fantastic, who is he?’ and they said, ‘We can't tell you’. I