Radio presenter Jackie O was left fearing for her family’s safety after a stalker sent her up to 2000 social media messages and had flowers delivered to her home. <\/p>\n
The co-host of the Kyle & Jackie O Show, whose real name is Jacqueline Henderson, was inundated with direct messages from a stranger on Instagram over five months.<\/p>\n
She did not respond and instead recorded the messages in approximately 700 screenshots, each of which captured up to five missives. <\/p>\n
The man at the other end of the phone was David Gourlay, an unemployed 38-year-old who graphically detailed his sexual fantasies involving the radio host. <\/p>\n
Many of the messages were sent consecutively and reflected personal details about Henderson, including information about her family. <\/p>\n
Despite having never met the radio presenter, her stalker wrote as if they had a pre-existing relationship and a child together. <\/p>\n
“I am not giving up on us,” he wrote in one message sent on the morning of July 3.<\/p>\n
Later that day, Gourlay sent a bouquet of flowers to Henderson’s home.<\/p>\n
The broadcaster was afraid for her family’s safety given her stalker knew where she lived, according to the facts.<\/p>\n
Police traced the flower order, which was mistakenly addressed to ‘Jackie Anderson’, to Gourlay, who had listed his mobile number. <\/p>\n
They found him sitting on a bench opposite Henderson’s house and took him into custody before he was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital for a mental health assessment.<\/p>\n
Gourlay faced Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday to plead guilty to stalking the broadcaster and using Instagram in a menacing, harassing or offensive way. <\/p>\n
Five other charges, including being armed with the intention of committing an indictable offence, were withdrawn by the prosecutors. <\/p>\n
Gourlay will be sentenced when he returns to court in December. <\/p>\n
A five-year apprehended violence order prohibits him from approaching Henderson or contacting her except through a lawyer. <\/p>\n
The order, which expires in 2030, bars him from assaulting, threatening, stalking or harassing the radio presenter or anyone with whom she had a domestic relationship.<\/p>\n
It comes as Henderson and her co-host Kyle Sandilands face criticism over mounting breaches of the Commercial Radio Code of Practice decency rules. <\/p>\n
Their KIIS FM breakfast show was found to have breached the rules seven times between August to December 2024, prompting accusations of systemic issues. <\/p>\n
The breaches included broadcasting audio clips of male and female staff members urinating and a game where a contestant provided an offensive description of a sexual position.<\/p>\n
The Kyle & Jackie O Show has been a regular ratings juggernaut in Sydney, but has struggled to capture the Melbourne market since launching there in April 2024.<\/p>\n
Its hosts signed a 10-year contract extension in 2023 that was said to be worth more than AU$200 million (NZ$226 million).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Radio presenter Jackie O was left fearing for her family’s safety after a stalker sent her up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[85,67,156,1073,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-71149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-media","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}