Samantha Wall has been jailed after subjecting her victims – two well-respected Greater Manchester business figures – to years of torment
Samantha Wall pictured meeting her victim, Brad Burton (centre), and Mr Burton’s friend Alan Price, in 2019(Image: Greater Manchester Police)
A motivational speaker and tech entrepreneur who were targeted by a ‘cruel’ cyberstalker have opened up on how her ‘relentless campaign of lies’ about them ‘ruined’ their hard-earned reputations and left them feeling ‘hopeless.’
Samantha Wall, 55, subjected entrepreneur and author Brad Burton, 52, and businesswoman Naomi Timperley, 53, to what they have described as a ‘modern day witch hunt.’
After meeting him at an event in 2019, where she spoke to him for just two minutes, Wall, from Stockport, began posting a ‘barrage’ of false accusations about Salford-born Mr Burton on a variety of social media platforms.
Over a period of four years, she wrongly accused completely innocent and happily married Mr Burton of poisoning her cat, having affairs, and of being a sex offender amongst other entirely false and libellous claims.
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Incredibly, she also accused Mr Burton of ‘harassing and abusing’ her over a period of a decade, before later falsely claiming that he had been raided by the police, issued with a ‘stalking protection order’,
She even claimed that he had gone to prison for nine years and that he had a ‘psychopathic twin brother who was covering for him whilst he was in jail.’
Brad Burton (right) and Naomi Timperley (left) outside Minshull Street Crown Court(Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
She also ‘harassed’ Ms Timperley, from Sale, for around three years. Ms Timperley was also bombarded with posts containing ‘lies and defamation.’ Wall was eventually prosecuted in 2023.
Wall, of Butterfield Close, Cheadle, Stockport, initially denied improper use of a public, electronic communication network and two counts of stalking. She changed her pleas on the day her trial was due to begin in November last year.
Samantha Wall’s police mugshot(Image: Greater Manchester Police)
She was jailed for two years and four months at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday (October 24).
Judge Neil Usher said he accepted Wall was suffering with a ‘chronic and enduring delusional disorder’ but said ‘although it may go some way to explain your behaviour, it cannot completely explain it, nor does it excuse it.’
‘Her lies have dominated every corner of our existence’
Before he passed down the sentence, both Mr Burton and Ms Timperley stood in the witness box in court, and read victim personal statements, where they outlined the devastating impact Wall’s crimes had had on their lives.
Mr Burton said: “For four plus years, her relentless campaign of lies, harassment and character assassination has dominated every corner of our existence, mentally, emotionally, financially, and digitally.
“As a motivational speaker and business owner, my reputation is my livelihood. I spent decades building a career from nothing, establishing a nationwide business network in the UK, writing books and inspiring thousands.
“But Sam’s fabricated accusations, calling me a convicted violent offender, fraud, stalker, have tarnished my name, eroded trust and devastated my family’s sense of security.
Mr Burton and Ms Timperley said the experience had ‘broken’ them(Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
“At first, her claims seemed absurd, but she used her expertise as a social media marketer to amplify these lies, creating an undeniable tidal wave of harm and generated an almost a fanatical online fanbase who would tune in for the latest – made up – developments.
“Anyone searching online for me, would also find her posts, accusations and attacks.”
He said a group of containing around 200 business people he was coaching ‘collapsed overnight after she convinced someone to infiltrate it.’
And, due to a ‘perfect storm’ of the pandemic and his ‘daily focus being dominated by dealing with her attacks’, he then had to put his primary business into insolvency.
“The stress, sleepless nights, dread have pushed me to one of the darkest periods of my life. I felt helpless,” he said. “Nobody could really understand the severity of what I was dealing with. I could do no more to make this all stop.”
Wall was jailed for four years and four months(Image: Greater Manchester Police)
Ms Timperley told the court: “My peace was stolen piece by piece, post by post, message by message until even silence felt unsafe. “For over two and a half years, I was hunted through hashtags, chased through timelines, cornered in comment sections – my name dragged through the dirt of digital spaces that once held community but became cages of cruelty.
“And though there were no fists, no footsteps behind me in the dark, the harm ran deeper. Because this kind of violence doesn’t leave bruises you can see.
“It lives beneath the skin in the racing heart, in the sleepless nights, in the fear that flickers every time my phone lights up. The internet was weaponised against me. Used to intimidate, to control, to humiliate.
Both Mr Burton and Ms Timperley now hope to move on with their lives(Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
“Pinned at the top of profiles. Poison at the top of the page. Defamatory words, like stains that won’t wash out. Still there for the world to see. Still there every time I search my own name.
“And what does that do? To a person’s work, to their reputation, to their sense of self? It takes years to build a name and seconds to destroy it. And when that destruction is public, when it’s shared and liked and amplified, it echoes through every corner of your life.”
“My family have seen it,” she added. “My friends have felt it. My colleagues have watched me try to hold it all together, and I’ve watched the hurt in their eyes as they saw how this broke me.”
Both victims said they had been prescribed medication due to mental health difficulties caused by Wall’s abuse.
‘We had to stay silent throughout’
Speaking outside court after the hearing, Mr Burton they had both been ‘vilified’ as part of a ‘modern-day witch hunt.’
“It’s been a zero-sum game,” he said. “And for many, many years we have been unheard victims. The nature of social media is, you put any horrendous allegations and people just scroll past it. But I couldn’t defend myself in case I jeopardised the case.”
Ms Timperley said it had been a ‘lengthy process’ and that ‘we have had to stay silent throughout.’ She said they had had to ‘fight for justice all of the way’ and that it was ‘exhausting.’
She said she felt it was ‘important’ that Wall was handed a custodial sentence.
Mr Burton said he hoped Wall being jailed was ‘the end of a difficult chapter in my life’. However, he said, it should ‘never have got to this stage.’
“The most difficult bit about this has been the social media companies,” he said. “They could have pressed a button, instantly, and we could have avoided all this.”
“This isn’t any joke,” he continued, as he spoke about the impact on his own mental health. “This could have had tragic consequences”.
He accused the firms of being ‘lawless’ and of ‘hiding behind bigness, and added: “They should use this opportunity to make change.”
He said the advent of AI meant we were ‘heading into unchartered waters’ in terms of online safety and that you ‘have a 1980s police force dealing with a 2025 problem.’
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said that ‘ever since these reports were made, we have supported the victims.’
PC Wayne Hasselby, who led the investigation for the force, said: “It is hard to escape online harassment, as so much of our lives are now online.
“This particular campaign of harassment took a toll on her victims’ mental health and day to day life. I’m glad this has finally been put to an end, and they can now find some closure and move on with their lives. Samantha Wall must now pay the price for her actions.
“I encourage those who think they are being harassed or stalked, whether that be online or physically, to get in touch with us.
“We’re committed to putting a stop to these types of crimes and to bring charges against those who commit these awful offences.”