Socialite, 49, dubbed ‘London’s most dangerous woman’ is jailed for sick stalking campaign against church warden she met online

A socialite once dubbed ‘London’s most dangerous woman’ has been jailed for five years for stalking a church warden after contacting him through an online site. 

Farah Dan, also known as Farah Damji, 49, threatened the man and his family after he spurned her sexual advances. 

Dan, whose father is a multi-millionaire property developer then tried to destroy the name of her victim who is an engineering director and volunteer church warden.

Dan, first came to public prominence after she admitted having a kinky affair with Guardian columnist William Dalrymple. She also had a high profile affair with a senior executive at The Guardian. 

Kingston Crown Court heard Dan met her first victim, who is in his 40s, after contacting him through an online site in October 2013.

 A notorious socialite once dubbed ‘London’s most dangerous woman’ was jailed for 15 months today for a £17,500 housing benefit fraud.

Dan and the victim met to discuss her social housing firm. Following their meeting Dan, initiated a sexual encounter, but an agreement was made between the two to limit their relationship to a business level. 

In December 2013, Dan invited the victim to her company’s Christmas party, where she again attempted to seduce the man.

The victim, who is a married man with children rebuffed the advance which prompted a campaign of harassment. 

The court heard that between December 19, 2013 and January 5, 2014 Dan, using a number of false identities, made 186 silent or hoax calls and texts to the victim’s mobile. 

She also tried to plant stories in the media about the company where the man’s company. 

She even sent sexually explicit texts and made silent calls to her victim’s 16-year-old son. 

At one stage, she even went to the boy’s school to talk to his deputy head teacher about the ‘affairs’. 

Later, she emailed her victim’s wife using a false profile claiming she had compromising photographs of him with a number of women. 

Dan also advised her victim’s wife ‘to look after her children’.

Some of the more disturbing messages included threats of sexual violence against members of the victim’s family including his six-year-old daughter. 

As she continued her campaign against the victim, Dan contacted the local vicar and made a string of false allegations. 

She then attempted to contact the press and plant a false story about her victim claiming a married church member was using online dating sites to hook up with women. 

The court heard Dan demanded her victim issue her with an apology and resign from all church activities before undergoing counselling for sex addiction. She claimed she would publish the allegations unless he agreed to her demands. 

She then set up another false identity and claimed she was pregnant by the victim, before creating further fake Facebook accounts to accuse the man of being a sex pest and having several affairs. 

She then accused the victim’s vicar of covering up the story. 

Police tried to arrest Dan on January 5, 2014 at her home in south west London. She handed herself in on January 9 and was charged with stalking.  

The following day she was granted bail at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court and continued her stalking campaign. 

She contacted business associates by email and blogged about domestic abuse. She even filed a police report expressing concern about the safety of the victim’s children. 

Later, she wrote to MPs and other high-profile figures attempting to cause further problems for her victim. 

Police arrested Dan on March 28, 2014 and charged her again with stalking. 

On April 2, 2014, while on bail for the earlier stalking charges, a man in his 50s reported Dan for harassment. 

Dan started stalking this man after he had made a statement to police which had led to her bail being revoked. 

She tried to discredit this second victim with business associates, accusing him of domestic abuse and fraud.

Investigating officer Vincent Chan said: ‘This has been an extremely complex case of stalking with Dan using a number of aliases via multiple social media accounts and mobiles in a planned and co-ordinated effort to utterly destroy the home, social, religious and work life of one of her victims. 

‘The victim in his 40s lost his employment and his social and home life has been severely affected. Dan’s sentence is a reflection of how seriously the judicial system, and more importantly, society acknowledge such criminal behaviour

‘The amendment to the harassment laws in 2012 was designed precisely to acknowledge and recognise this style of severe and malicious behaviour to disrupt a victim’s day-to-day life. 

‘The legal system understands the psychological impact of such campaigns of stalking as much as the more obvious forms of violence and physical threats. The Metropolitan Police Service is fully committed to investigating the perpetrators in such cases.’

‘The Metropolitan Police Service takes all forms of harassment seriously and encourages all victims to come forward and report to the police as soon as possible. Crime prevention and personal safety advice is available from the Met’s website at www.met.police.uk.’

In 2006, Dan escaped from Downview Prison in Surrey while serving a three-and-a-half year sentence for fraudulently spending £50,000 and stealing a credit card. 

Dan was allowed out of the jail on temporary release to attend a university course, but went on the run instead.

Writing in her blog she said: ‘Seems I am the cause for great consternation because I have apparently absconded. I don’t think you can call it that.’

In January 2010, she was jailed for 15 months for a £17,500 housing benefit fraud. 

She forged documents in order to defraud landlords and claim housing benefit and even sub-let one property she was claiming housing benefit for.