Stalker who left The Crown star Claire Foy fearing for her life after sending 1,000 graphic emails is sent back to US
A STALKER who left Claire Foy fearing for her life after sending graphic emails and turning up at her home is being sent back to the US.
Jason Penrose, 49, bombarded The Crown actress with sickening rape emails and begged her to be his girlfriend.
He also showed up at her home – forcing Foy, 38, to call the police – and contacted her sister, ex-boyfriend and agent.
Penrose today avoided jail and was instead handed a suspended sentence after he admitted stalking involving serious alarm or distress.
He also pleaded guilty to two breaches of a stalking protection order.
The American agreed to be sent back to the US as he came to the UK illegally.
He has spent 12 months detained at Whittington Hospital for psychiatric treatment at the taxpayer’s expense.
Penrose was also slapped with an indefinite restraining order banning him from contacting Foy by any means.
Sentencing Penrose, Judge David Aaronberg said: “You have explained to those who have been treating you that you were writing screenplays and it was during that time that you first became aware of the actress, Claire Foy.
‘You became infatuated with her, deluding yourself that she would be willing to act in a film and that you had some sort of romantic attachment to her.. You began sending emails to her agents, both in the UK and the USA.
“The reality is that Ms Foy has never met you, never responded to the hundreds of requests which you have made to see her and wants nothing whatsoever to do with you.”
Wood Green Crown Court heard how Penrose first got in touch with the actress in August to ask her to be in a film he was writing.
But his obsession grew and he began sending “graphic” emails about “Foy being raped and wanting to be his girlfriend”.
The chilling campaign had an “extreme effect” on the actress’ “life and peace of mind”.
She was left “terrified in her own home” after Penrose showed up and told her daughter: “It’s Jason, I’m outside”.
In a letter to the court, Foy said: “His relentless attempts to contact me are so traumatic. Every time I think this is sorted it is not.
“I feel like there is nothing that would stop him being able to contact me, he has affected every aspect of my life.”
The court was told Penrose targeted Foy in a “sustained, unwanted, fixated and obsessive behaviour that was intrusive due to his delusional beliefs”.
He showed up at her home on December 17 last year and repeatedly rang her doorbell.
Penrose also messaged her on LinkedIn and Instagram.
The campaign of harassment forced Foy to beg pals not to tag her in social media posts in case Penrose found her.
It also left the actress “in genuine fear for her safety and terrified and helpless in her own home”.
Varinder Hayre, prosecuting, said: “Ms Foy was terrified as she did not know what his intention was. She was in fear for her and her daughter’s lives.
“She was frightened knowing he was somewhere.”
Foy was granted an interim stalking protection order earlier this year but Penrose sent her another letter and a parcel from the hospital where he was being treated.
A five-year stalking protection order against Penrose was then issued in July after the actress raised “great concerns due to the nature of the communications”.
District Judge William Nelson warned Penrose he is facing a jail sentence when he is sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on November 28.
He said: “‘The persistent conduct created very serious distress, a great deal of psychological harm and caused Ms Foy to make considerable changes to her lifestyle.”
Foy has won a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
She starred in Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Unsane and played Neil Armstrong’s wife Janet Shearon in the biopic of the astronaut, First Man.
The actress famously played The Queen in the first two series of Netflix’s The Crown.