Casefile True Crime - Case 89: Ella Tundra

Episode Date: July 14, 2018

In September 2012, former Countdown champion Richard Britton walked into a pub and was served by a 21-year-old bartender, whom he nicknamed “Ella Tundra”. From that moment on, Britton developed a fixation with Ella that filled the typically outgoing and confident young woman with paranoia and anxiety. ---  Episode narrated by the Anonymous Host Episode researched and written by Eileen Ormsby, author of ‘The Darkest Web – Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives: The inside story of the internet’s evil twin.’ For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-89-ella-tundra

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SiriusXM, everything you want to hear lives here. Our episodes deal with SiriusXM and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. 18-year-old Paige Rowland worked at the Asda supermarket in Glenrothes, Scotland. The Asda store was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

and was a common first job for local teenagers. When Paige wasn't pursuing her interests in reading, writing, and drawing, she worked a few shifts a week at the supermarket as a shelf stacker. There was nothing interesting or remarkable about the job. Most days were like every other. But her colleagues were nice and had decent benefits, and it came with a generous staff discount. On October 3, 2014, Paige was working her regular shift at Asda.

She was in the breakfast aisle, tasked with arranging cereal boxes neatly and replacing stock. As she stood up from fixing the boxes on the bottom shelf, something hard hit the back of her head. Paige collapsed. The tinkering sound of shattering glass echoed down the aisle. Colleagues rushed to her aid. Paige was on the floor, blood pooled from a gaping wound at the back of her head. A bakery chef found towels to press against the wound to stem the gush.

Initial considerations that Paige had accidentally hit her head on a shelf above were quickly dismissed. Broken glass was all around her, but none of the shelves held glass items. A customer approached the supermarket manager having witnessed what happened. They explained that a man had approached Paige from behind, brandishing a wine bottle. He hit her, and calmly walked away. CCTV footage showed the assailant to be a dark-haired male in his 20s, of average height and slim build.

He was dressed like a runner, wearing a light jumper, shorts with leggings underneath, and black rimmed glasses. He was carrying a rucksack and a blue and green tubular bag. Local news picked up the story and circulated a description of the wanted man, calling the attack on the teenager a mystery, perhaps a random strike by a madman. But it wasn't random. The attacker had traveled nearly 500 miles from London, specifically to smashing the skull of Paige Rowland. Richard Britton of Bedford, United Kingdom, had a genuine claim to fame.

Before he turned 20, he had won the TV quiz show Countdown, crowned Series 55 Champion in 2006. Richard's triumph in the Words and Numbers game show came after winning all late of his heat games, making him one of the show's coveted octo champs. His prizes included a 20-volume dictionary and a flashy trophy. It took pride of place on his shelf beside a framed photograph of him with Countdown presenters Des Linem and Carol Vorderman. Richard would tell people later that he thought Des Linem didn't like him very much, because Richard didn't smile enough during the competition.

Richard didn't get along with people. He always knew he was different, believing he was far more intelligent than others. His ego caused conflict with employers, and he never lasted in a job for more than two months. Richard would say, I'm quite good at getting jobs, but I'm no good at staying in them. The Countdown win was proved to Richard of his superior intellect. It also came with a small measure of fame. People started to recognize him, talk to him, and perhaps for the first time in Richard's life, respect him. Less than a month after winning Countdown, Richard went on another game show, Brain Teaser. He won and took home 1500 pounds. There was no doubt quizzes were Richard's thing, and he reveled in his newfound celebrity status.

Anyone who met Richard would very quickly hear about his Countdown win, with the young man going into minute detail about his intellectual prowess. He also made a YouTube video in which he surrounded himself with Countdown memorabilia and spoke straight to the camera. My name's Richard Britton, and I'm a Countdown Champion. If you're a British viewer, you probably immediately recognize me as the winner of Series 55. If you're not a British viewer, I can tell you a bit about Countdown. It's probably one of the most celebrated game shows in British history, and I've won a series of it. He picked up a publicity photo of himself and the hosts, and went on to say, that's Carol Vorderman. She has been rated the sexiest woman in the UK. I know a lot of you want

me to talk about all the rumors about dressing room encounters I may or may not have had with Carol Vorderman. Richard gave the camera a wink. Following his game show wins, Richard obsessively searched for mentions of himself online. Many comments he found were harsh. He was called a disappointment, boring, and a misery gut. His YouTube bragging was seen as a joke. The agent of Countdown co-host Carol Vorderman provided a public statement, stating rumors of dressing room shenanigans between her client and Richard were ludicrous. As the public laughed at him, Richard got vigorously defensive. He boasted of his intellect, pointing out that he had consistently offered eight-letter words while also being very good at the numbers. He would keep on,

dominating the discussions, until he got an apology from his detractors. Richard's game show victories and the accompanying fame gave him the confidence to apply to the University of Cambridge, somewhere he considered a place of esteemed learning. He was nervous when he was accepted, feeling that although his social skills had improved, he wasn't sure his communication skills were ready for somewhere like Cambridge. As he waited for his time at Cambridge to begin, Richard turned his hand to gambling, hoping this would be a way of making money without having to work. Rather than games of chance, Richard fancied himself as a stock market whiz and would place

bets with boogies on whether the Financial Times stock exchange would rise or fall in the next 15 minutes. For a while, he won, convinced his skill and intelligence allowed him to predict financial movements with accuracy. But just a week before starting at Cambridge, he lost everything. There was never a time Richard had felt more successful and happier than when he was rising through the ranks of TV game shows. So in 2008, he entered the Countdown Championship of Champions, hoping to earn back his lost fame and fortune. But it was clear Richard had lost his spark and lacked confidence. During the championship, he put in a miserable performance. He lost with a lower score in the competition. He humiliated himself, offering up several non-existent words,

culminating in the nonsensical gander-seag. The word became an in-joke in Countdown circles for years afterwards. Richard dropped out of Cambridge soon after. Always a keen camper and hiker, he began living a nomadic existence, travelling throughout the UK and Europe. He slept in tents and hostels, sometimes travelling alone, sometimes with other people. He spent the next few years drifting between learning institutions and jobs, but he never quite fit in anywhere. Hours, days, even weeks were spent obsessively gaming. He also began to write prolifically, first for his own pleasure, but then for freelance sites. He earned £3 an hour for transcription, translation and writing articles.

The work was sporadic and dull, and mostly involved rewriting existing articles, changing them just enough to avoid being detected for plagiarism. In August 2011, Richard felt it was time for him to retry formal education. He enrolled as a mature age history student at Greenwich University in England. For the first time in many years, Richard found he was able to focus on his studies. He made a few friends who enjoyed past times like poker, monopoly, scrabble and risk, all games at which Richard excelled. They respected him for being a Countdown champion, especially when they entered pub quizzes,

which Richard took far more seriously than most people. One day in September 2012, Richard took a seat at the counter of the Student Union Bar, Bar Latitude. At age 25, he was slightly older than his fellow students, many of whom had come to think his manner was somewhat odd. He was considered a loner who spent a lot of time with books on his computer or in his own little world. Bar Latitude was a typical student drinking hole, hosting events such as open mic nights, comedy and student society fundraisers. He'd had colourful, eclectic decor with games and pool tables for entertainment.

As Richard took a seat, the barmaid smiled at him. Richard was immediately besotted. He felt there was something incredibly genuine about her greeting. She was enchanting and reminded Richard of Princess Leia in Star Wars. He soon learned the barmaid's name was Ella. It wasn't just her beauty that drew Richard. He was used to the fake and forced smiles of others, many without eye contact. Yet Ella's smile was genuine, warm and unforced.

Richard felt her smile was especially wide when directed at him. 21-year-old Ella Durant was living student life to the fullest, studying drama and politics. She was captain of her netball team, enjoyed skiing and campaigned for the Student Association. Earlier that year, she had volunteered as a London ambassador, welcoming people from around the world to the city on behalf of the mayor's office. Her outgoing and approachable personality made her perfectly suited to a job in the cafe bar of the university. The job came with its perks, discounts at student union outlets,

and reasonably flexible working hours. As Ella worked a shift at the bar in September 2012, a slightly older student came in. He was thin and unremarkable looking, with dark-rimmed glasses and a bit of stubble. Ella served him a drink with her customary friendly smile, but paid him no more attention than anyone else. He however kept staring at her as she moved around pulling pints and pouring drinks. She thought he seemed a bit odd, but harmless. After meeting Ella, Richard began going to the bar more frequently.

Ella didn't know that the quiet, pale, older student had watched her come and go, worked out the times of her shifts, and only ever came in when she was on duty. Sometimes when he came in, he would just sit and stare at her for that bit too long, making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She told herself she was overreacting. As soon as he had the opportunity, Richard told Ella of his claim to fame, being crowned winner of the Countdown Gameshow, though he thought she had probably recognized him and was being coy. When the bar ran a pub quiz a couple of weeks after they met, Richard made sure he and Ella were on the same team. They did well,

and Ella was mildly surprised to receive a hug from the man she barely knew. She accepted Richard's friend request on Facebook, which wasn't unusual for her regular customers and fellow students. He gave her a kiss on the cheek when he left that day, overjoyed that their relationship had taken a new step. Richard had already found Ella's Twitter feed. She was a prolific Twitter, and Richard read through them all. There were some in particular he thought were meant for him specifically. Just hold me baby, and we'll be alright. You know he's the one when your heart beats a bit faster. He walked into my life and it's beautiful. He believed she was letting him know how she felt

about him through her Twitter feed. Richard wanted to impress Ella the way he knew best, by winning a televised game show. But even better, this time it would be a team effort, which she could be part of. The BBC University Challenge. Richard didn't know if Ella would be of much use on the team, but he was happy to carry her if it meant spending time together. The next time he was at the bar, he casually invited Ella onto the BBC University Challenge team he was putting together. She was surprised and a little amused at the invitation. I don't know if I'm brainy enough, Rich, she said, to which Richard replied, we need beauty as well as brains.

He had brought along entry forms that needed to be filled out by individual team members, which he shoved at her. She took them and promised to fill them out as soon as she had time. Richard told her she needed to supply a photograph with the application, and she told him to go ahead and choose one for her since she was busy. That evening, Richard scrolled through her Facebook photos looking for the perfect picture to submit to the TV show. Happy to have an excuse to private message her, he started a chat. Maybe this one, he asked. Ella couldn't see the photo Richard was referring to. What photo is it? She replied. You're wearing a low-cut black lace trimmed top.

On your pink lips, a mischievous smile is playing. Ella replied, if you think I look smart enough. Richard then teased that she had not posted any photos of herself in the glasses she sometimes wore. He knew there were no photos on Facebook with her wearing them, because he had looked at every single one. When not on the bar whilst Ella was working, Richard spent the remainder of his time honing his general knowledge. Determined to impress Ella and get the team on TV, he revised intensively. During breaks in his revision, he would go through Ella's Facebook,

liking and commenting on photos and posts from years back. Every time he visited her page, he would have something to say. Until one day, he logged on and found himself locked out of Ella's account, unfriended. Shocked and upset, Richard confronted Ella at the bar and asked why. She said, you're kind of freaking me out. You're a good guy, but you're being far too forward. Richard was gutted, but he asked whether she was still going to be in his team auditioning for the university challenge. She told him yes and handed him her completed entry forms, but Ella said clearly, only as a friend, nothing more.

Richard took a deep breath. It was now or never. He decided he had to tell Ella, his princess layer, how he truly felt. He confessed he was infatuated with her, that he loved her, and that she was the only one for him. He revealed he had been in love with her from the moment they met and felt they were destined to be together. His declaration didn't have the desired effect. Rather than responding in kind, Ella pulled out of the team for the BBC University Challenge. Broken-hearted, Richard found a replacement, but they failed the audition and never got to be on TV. His dream of winning the game show with Ella by his side, impressed by his brilliance, was shattered.

Richard's behaviour grew increasingly erratic over the following weeks. He picked fights with his friends, doing petty things like snatching away his scrabble board in the middle of a game. He was still gambling and his drinking became troublesome, often sculling down two bottles of wine and then heading out to a club. If the bouncers wouldn't let him in, he would climb the fence and start fights. He no longer had access to Ella's Facebook, but there was still her Twitter and Instagram. The bubbly, outgoing Ella was prolific on social media and Richard scrolled through her timelines, photos and stories. Doing this, he came across a tweet she once posted that said, when I say I'm done, I mean fight for me. Richard believed

the tweet was meant for him and was prepared to accept her challenge. Richard made sure to bear the bar for every single one of Ella's shifts. He stayed for the duration, just sitting and staring. In his mind, she was Princess Leia, to his Han Solo. The fantasy was so strong, he could hear the music of Star Wars running through his head. Eventually, Ella swapped jobs with colleagues so that she could work in the kitchen. Away from Richard's unwavering gaze. Ella did what she could to avoid him, but she could never shake the feeling he was always around, watching. One day in December, Richard stopped her and tried to speak to her.

As she made her excuses to get away, he said, I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas. Later that day, he checked her Twitter feed and was ecstatic to see she posted. Just wanted to say that I love you. He wasn't tagged in it, but Richard believed she echoed his words, just wanted to, so he would know her tweet was directed at him. On Valentine's Day, he sent a card to Ella's address that he lifted from her University Challenge application form. When she received the card, Ella froze, realizing Richard now knew where she lived. By April 2013, Richard's obsession was making Ella so uncomfortable that she complained to

the University authorities. They made Richard sign a contract saying he would stop harassing her, but they stopped short of enforcing any measures that would physically protect her. Ella took to Twitter to express her frustration at the lack of action. Not happy that he's going to be let back into the Student Union where I work, I just want it to stop. She ended the tweet with an emoticon, a colon and a slash, used to express mixed emotions. To Richard, that emoticon meant that she didn't actually mean what she wrote, but the contract he signed meant he couldn't see her as often as he used to. So he started to call her. Most of the time, she wouldn't answer, so he'd leave her messages.

In one message, he mentioned that it had been live at first sight. That same day, Ella tweeted a meme that said, you had me at hello. He was excited, thinking she was sending him more coded messages, accepting his love. Sometimes when he called her, Richard played songs down the line that expressed how he felt. The Beatles were a particular favorite of Richard's. He played their song, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, so Ella would know his intentions were romantic and he was going to woo her. When he hung up, he played more Beatles to himself. They told him, she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ella was getting better at avoiding Richard. At one point, she had successfully avoided him for a week. He was left scrolling through her Twitter and Instagram feeds, and then he saw it. Her tweet, something's got your attention, and it's not me. She hadn't mentioned him or tagged him in it, but Richard believed Ella was speaking to him. To Ella, she was just sharing, retweeting, and posting statuses reflective of her own life and thoughts. Her mind was far from Richard. She had no clue he was obsessively scanning everything she posted and deluding himself that everything she wrote online was directed to him.

He continued to call and send her love letters through the post, rose-themed cards containing poetry and drawings. He kept playing songs to let her know how he felt. He played another British rock band, The Police, Every Breath You Take. He recorded it to her voicemail so she would be able to play it back and think of him. Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you. Ella had initially been reluctant to go to The Police about Richard as she felt sorry for him. For Richard's behaviour was increasingly unhinged, and she began to suspect he was dangerous.

She was no longer simply annoyed. She was slowly becoming terrified. She began to have panic attacks whenever she saw him, and sometimes she would scream at him to leave her alone. When letters kept arriving at her home, she decided to go to The Police. Although stalking had been a crime in the UK since 2012, The Police advised Ella that such cases were difficult to prove, let alone prosecute. Richard hadn't harmed her. There was little they could do, they told her. Ella assumed The Police would at least pay Richard a visit to caution him, but she was devastated to discover the only action they took was to talk to the university. The university banned Richard from the student union building,

meaning he couldn't enter the bar where she worked or sit outside waiting until she finished her shift. Soon after, Ella graduated with a bachelor's degree in politics and drama. She moved back to her parents to take up a job in Exeter. A combination of the report to The Police and the distance between them seemed to work. Richard backed off, and Ella was almost able to go back to a normal life. Little by little as the months wore on, she became less fearful. But Richard had not forgotten Ella. He spiralled into episodes of alcohol abuse on a roller coaster of hires and lows. When he was high, he would lift weights working out to booming music that motivated him to pursue his goals. During the lows, he would get blind drunk, abuse friends, and occasionally get into fights.

In October 2013, Greenwich University put on the graduation ceremony for Ella's class. Richard wrestled with himself. He knew she didn't want him there. He knew that her visit to The Police meant that perhaps she was serious when she said she didn't want to see him. But Richard couldn't keep himself away. Ella hadn't seen Richard for almost six months, but there he suddenly was, at the ceremony, sitting directly in front of her. She tried to swap places with the person next to her, putting as much distance between him and herself as possible. Richard saw this and reflected on his behaviour so far. For the first time, Richard admitted to himself that he wasn't just an admirer.

He was a stalker. Richard mulled over this revelation. Yes, he was a stalker, but his stalking came from a place of love. He was a benevolent stalker. He convinced himself benevolent stalking was different to malevolent stalking. He believed that the latter was intended to cause harm or induce fear, but the former was purely an expression of affection. Once again, the lyrics of the Beatles spoke to him. I'll get you. I'll get you in the end. Yes, I will. I'll get you in the end. I'll get you in the end. Well, there's gonna be a time when I'm gonna change your mind, so you might as well resign yourself to me.

After the graduation ceremony, Richard recommenced calling Ella and leaving messages on her voicemail. He sent her a Valentine's Day card. In it, he drew her as a fairy tale character. He proposed to her. There was imagery of Ella and Richard and their two fictional children holding hands. He wrote a poem in fluorescent gel pens and put their initials in her heart. Ella had been careful not to leave any hints about where she was living in Exeter and made sure everyone knew not to tell Richard, but he was able to find her address by tracking down her mother on the electoral roll. Ella panicked and once again went to the police. Again, they didn't seem to take her situation seriously and she left in tears. However, a police woman

did visit Richard and told him to stay away. But Richard was now focused on a new project to win over Ella. He was going to write a novel, a fairy tale, a beautiful homage to their love. His heroine had to be named after his muse, but he turned her surname into a nanogram. Her name was Ella Tundra and she was the protagonist of his life work, his opus, the book he was going to call The World Rose. And so started one of the happiest periods of Richard's life. Even though he couldn't see Ella, in a way she was with him every day as he wrote his masterpiece. Richard neglected his studies, barely ate, and listened to the Beatles religiously.

Unable to hold down a job, Richard started gambling again. It didn't go well, so he took on a job at a souvenir store in Westminster selling fridge magnets to tourists. He liked his manager, who was gruff but pleasant. After two days, he thought he might have found a job he could stick with. The other workers warned him to wait until he met the business owner before he decided that he'd found his forever career. Richard met Gina on the third day and hated her on site. She was shoddy and unreasonable and found fault in everything he did. She confused him with contradictory messages, such as he must never leave his post, but if he ran out of stock he must go into the storeroom and replace it immediately. When a customer asked for a magnet design that

had sold out, Richard ran to the storeroom to check for replacements. Gina followed him in to scream at him for leaving his post. Frustrated, he threw a box of magnets at her head, told her to fuck off and quit. He told himself he had done a service to all the faceless people who would work for her in the future. She would think twice about ever being that unreasonable again. After that, he briefly worked for a landscape gardener who paid 10 pounds per hour. Richard liked the boss, Lawrence, even though he seemed constantly stoned. But when Richard opened up about being Countdown Champion, Lawrence didn't call him for any further work. That job was followed by a stint as a leaflet distributor. Richard enjoyed the exercise,

but not the paltry wage of five pounds per hour. The jobs weren't working out, so in July Richard decided to leave London to be a wandering nomad for the summer. He bought a tent for 10 pounds and travelled with his laptop and a little else. He took a train 50 miles southeast to Favisham, where he met with a friend. The pair walked three hours to Whitstable, a seaside town on the northern coast of Kent. From there, Richard just walked, exploring the southeastern parts of England. He had no mattress, so finding fields and parks with ideal grass to pitch his tent was a priority. He also needed places that were just the right balance between being not too obvious, but not so remote as to be dangerous. One night he was woken by someone unzipping his tent.

The person ran away when he started shouting, but they stole his shoes. Creeped out, he packed up his tent and started wandering shoeless in the middle of the night, until he met some homeless people who told him where he could pitch his tent safely. When he slept on private land or in a public park, he had to ensure he woke early before anyone would discover him and tell him to move on. Or worse, call the police. When he got to Canterbury, he traded his tent for a youth hostel and spent his days at a pub, feverishly writing, editing and polishing his novel, The World Rose. He continued wandering further south and got into a pattern of two nights camping followed by one night in accommodation like a hostel or a cheap

bed and breakfast. He made it to Folkestone on the south coast where he could sleep on the beach, write his book and listen to music on his laptop. He had discovered Moby and listened to his albums on repeat. Richard then left England and flew to Belgium where his mother lived. His book was all but finished, so he started an online blog. He wrote of his travels, his wanderings and adventures. He enjoyed the rambling flow of thoughts that could be poured out on a blog, as opposed to the structured discipline of writing fiction. He called it Richard Britain's blog, Musings from the Author and Countdown Champion. His novel, The World Rose, was 60,000 words. Believing he had written a bestseller, Richard tried to get an agent interested in it,

but they told him it needed to be at least 70,000 words to meet the industry standard. Richard pointed out that 60,000 words put him in the company of great authors, H. G. Wells, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald, all who had written classics that were shorter than The World Rose. The agents weren't convinced. Unwilling to bend to their demands, Richard joined Wattpad, a site where people could upload their writing to be read and critiqued by millions of users. It was mostly used for those who wanted to share fan fiction or self-publishers testing the water for a new story. Richard felt his writing

was far superior than any other content on the platform, but he thought it would be a good way to bring attention to his work and prove it's worth to publishers. So he uploaded the prologue for The World Rose, with a note saying that if anyone wanted the rest of the book, they had to buy it. In his blurb, he called his book an epic fairy tale romance set in a semi-fictional ancient world and claimed that it was a stunningly original piece of literature. The central character was a renowned beauty, The Rose of the World. Richard claimed critics had compared his work to Dickens, Shakespeare, Rowling, Feist and Roberts. Finally, he wrote,

I shall be relentless in promoting my work for the next several months, and I intend to try some novel techniques, so don't be surprised if you see me in the news. Wattpad, at its best, can be a wonderful, supportive community of writers sharing their work, encouraging each other, providing thoughtful, useful critique. Or, it can be a cesspool of wannabe writers, massive egos bolstered by sock puppet accounts, jealousy, and people trolling for reactions. Soon after Richard had uploaded his prologue to The World Rose, he was pleased to note that it had garnered a healthy number of downloads. Some people stated that they liked it and provided positive feedback. Others offered critiques. Richard would respond to them, believing

less intelligent people didn't understand the themes and nuances of his work. Perhaps you could be more specific and let us know which words you didn't understand, he said to someone who had commented that the author loves using big words, but hates using them correctly. Another reader commented on what they considered odd word choices, like referring to a bulldog as a tenacious tyke that has talon-like claws. They accused the author of overusing a thesaurus and called it the sort of writing they would expect from a precocious young teen eager to impress his English teacher. Richard responded, When I won countdown, I got a 20 volume dictionary but have never owned a thesaurus.

Naturally, my vocabulary is bigger than yours. A tyke means a dog and particularly fits this dog because he also acts like a small child. Hint, some words have multiple meanings. He is acting tenaciously and tenacity is a well-known feature of bulldogs. A bulldog with uncart nails has a talon-like claw. Meanwhile, Ella quietly moved to Glasgow in Scotland for a new job in August 2014. Even though she hadn't seen Richard Britain for six months, putting 500 miles between them meant she could relax a little more, breathe a little easier. That month, Ella received a message via Twitter from someone using the handle at the World Rose. It was Richard. He asked her to read his self-published masterpiece and let

him know what she thought. Ella blocked him but didn't go to the police. The English police had dismissed her concern several times and she didn't want to get rebuffed in a similar manner by the Scottish police. She believed Richard wouldn't be able to find her in Scotland. But Richard trawled through her Twitter and Instagram feeds to find clues of her whereabouts. Eventually, he was able to figure out where her workplace was. On August 26, Richard tweeted to the world, I think I might move to Scotland. By September 2014, Ella had settled into her new home and job. When she finished up one shift, she walked out of the store and her stomach dropped. Sitting on a bench outside was Richard.

He waved at her and motioned that she should stop and talk to him. Fear rendering her speechless, Ella took off down the street. Richard gathered his belongings and followed. He wanted to tell her of his amazing plan to get publicity for his book. Richard had cooked up a plan to kidnap Ella, but it would be a ruse. She would be in on it. They would go into the hills and camp out while the nation searched for her. Then, when the media interest was at its peak, they would return and she would tell the world that they were in love. Best of all, Ella, who loved drama while they were at university, would play the lead role when the world rose was made into a movie. They would both be famous and live happily ever after on

the sales of the book. Richard had the necessary supplies to carry out his plan with him in his bag. Ella called triple nine, the emergency number, and headed to a crowded area. By the time police met with her, Richard had disappeared. They took a statement and drove her home. They waited, but he didn't appear. Richard went to Ella's workplace the next day, but she didn't show. Instead, Ella had spent the day barricaded in her flat, terrified that Richard had found where she worked. She had no way of knowing if he knew where she lived. Two days later, Ella hesitantly returned to work. After her shift, Richard appeared again, carrying his duffel bag. He obstructed her path and insisted he needed to talk to her. This time, Ella found her voice and screamed at him, loudly,

making sure to cause a scene so people would turn and look. She pulled out her phone and took his photograph for evidence. Then she ran back into her workplace where he couldn't follow and phoned the police. When police arrived, Richard had disappeared again. Enabled by taffy anti-stalking legislation, Scottish police agreed to charge Richard with engaging in a course of conduct causing fear or alarm once they found him. Richard returned to London. On the way home, he fired up his laptop and wrote a blog post that he called The Benevolent Stalker. In it, he wrote of his unrequited love for Ella and all the things that he had done to try and make her love him back. He wrote of it as a great

love story. Quote, Every great romance is about two partners who are utterly obsessed with each other. Romeo and Juliet are people who are so passionately and powerfully in love that nothing else matters to them. But what if that feeling was felt on only one side? What if Juliet had rejected Romeo? Would he become a stalker? It seems that modern society drools over depictions of this intense, obsessional love, but only when it's mutual. When it comes from just one side, it suddenly deemed a terrible thing. When I was listening to The Beatles, I realized that a lot of their early music suited my mood. Much of it is about being utterly obsessed with a particular woman. Are The Beatles creepy stalkers?

Of course not. He went on to say, I think our relationship is finished now. I gave it my best shot. And he ended the blog post with, but alas, I'll have to find another way. Richard resumed his nomadic lifestyle, although now he called it living as a tram. He found a spot on a golf course where he could pitch his ten each night. Every morning at 7am, a man would come by on a lawnmower, which would be Richard's cue to pack up and find somewhere to write for the day. The lawnmower man didn't mind him being there, and sometimes acknowledged him with a cheery greeting.

London was a great place for the starving, tortured artist lifestyle, as there were any number of places with free Wi-Fi and where Richard could plug in and charge up his laptop. He spent his days in libraries, pubs, Starbucks, McDonald's, and Waterstones bookstores. He wrote blog posts for his website almost daily. When he saw homeless people, he would lecture them and give them unsolicited advice, telling them that they could live like him, just by spending ten quid on a tent. He felt like famed author George Orwell, who he recalled lived as a tramp when he wrote down and out in London and Paris. Yet Richard was not getting the kinds of reviews that Orwell did.

On WAPAD, things were getting worse for the world rose, as more negative feedback piled up. Richard simply didn't understand that every time he lashed out at critics, he was attracting more negative attention. He was firm in his belief in his own brilliance, and his self-importance grew, rather than receded. He was unable to take even well-intentioned criticism from successful authors, dismissing their opinions as meaningless. In a very short time, Richard had acquired quite the reputation on the site, and WAPAD users wanted to punish his arrogance. Some WAPAD users went to Goodreads and gave the world rows a one-star rating, even though they hadn't read beyond the prologue.

Goodreads is the English language's premier site for independent public reviews of all books. It's one of the top 500 websites of the world, with tens of millions of members. Goodreads reviews carry the same sort of weight for authors as TripAdvisor does for hotels, or Yelp for restaurants. One frequent WAPAD user called herself Pajie Lu, or sometimes Pajie Rance. Pajie Lu spent a lot of time on the site, where she declared herself to be a writer, reader, critic, and artist. In her profile, she wrote, Writing is my only bias. Don't care what I'm writing, so long as I'm producing words and some

kind of story, and building characters to my and your satisfaction. I am constantly striving to be better, and thus constantly live with the urge to edit. In turn, this causes me a great deal of stress. I am learning to chill. A photograph of a slim, red-headed teenager, and links to several other social media platforms that she used accompanied Pajie Lu's profile. She had sassy quotes and rules for people interacting with her, such as, don't ask me to follow you, and don't ask me to read your stuff. In her description of herself, she said, I have the worst luck, and I'm sure if you stay long enough, you'll see this for yourself. Seeing the reactions of new author Richard

Britton to critiques of the book he had uploaded, Pajie Lu downloaded the prologue to the World Rose for herself. Then she wrote a review of it on Goodreads. Pajie Lu's 1500-word, one-star review of the World Rose was scathing. The prologue she called just awful, adding it was bland and bored her out of her skull. She hated the cover, the blurb, the writing, the characters, and the story. She wrote, it's filled with many writing no-nose, way too much telling, pretentious prose, and a main character that I already hate. She provided patronizing advice to the author, stating that he should have given his book away for free, and pointed out many so-called writing rules that she considered he had breached.

Finally, she turned to an assessment of the author himself. Quote, And Britton has the audacity to say, to continue reading, please purchase the book. You mean I have to pay to read something that's not been professionally edited? No thank you. I wouldn't even download a free version of the book to be perfectly honest with you. Britton's infamy on Wattpad means that we Wattpaders know he didn't bother to invest in a professional editor for this, which means he has little respect for his readers. It also means he's incredibly stubborn and arrogant if he thinks this kind of material is worth money.

I strongly feel that had this undergone a round of edits from a professional, and if Britton had opted to make friends on Wattpad instead of enemies, he could have found himself some lovely readers who would have helped him sort out all of these rookie mistakes. It's a real shame because there is plenty of potential here, but nobody wants to read a potentially good book. We want to read books polished to perfection, and sadly, I think the world rose is far from perfection. Paige E. Liu signed the review with her real name, Paige Rowland. One of the throwaway lines in her review was,

Unfortunately, Mr Britton has gained a bit of infamy on Wattpad where he's known for threatening users who don't praise him. Pray for me. The more Richard's work was attacked and ridiculed, the more he fought back, making things worse for himself. When critics spoke about writing rules, he called them idiots and wrote the following. As any artist will tell you, there are no rules. When he read Paige Rowland's Goodreads review, every seething emotion he had came to the fore. She had not only attacked him and his writing, she had attacked Ella, the love of his life. He saw that the teenager was prolific on social media and had no problem finding her Facebook profile that listed her workplace as the Asda

Superstore in, of all places, Glasgow. Two weeks after leaving Scotland, Richard hopped on a train, headed back to the home of the object of his affections. This time he was ruled by burning hatred instead of the love that led him there the last time. When he arrived that night, he found a camp spot and played the acoustic version of the song God by John Lennon. I had a message from above and I'm here to tell you that this message concerns our love. The angels must have sent me to deliver this to you. The next day, Richard calmly entered the Asda Superstore. He selected a bottle of white wine from the alcohol section and walked to the breakfast aisle. He saw the familiar red-headed

teenager kneeling down before the shelf lined with cereal boxes distracted in her work. Richard walked up behind Page Rowland and slammed the bottle as hard as he could against the petite teenager's skull. Page was rushed to hospital. Her head wound was deep and required many stitches. At first, she had no idea why a random person would attack her in such a way, but once she was shown CCTV footage of her attacker, she was able to identify him as the World Rose author, Richard Britten. Page knew what he looked like from his pictures on the internet and had no doubt it was him. She knew it was payback for her scathing review of his book. After the attack, Richard immediately fled Glasgow for England. The next day,

he joined in the global march for elephants and rhinos in London, not because he cared about stopping the ivory trade, but because a lot of girls went to these things. He eluded police, spending his days exercising and riding until he was traced by his mobile phone signal and was promptly arrested. His phone signal also placed him in Glasgow at the time of Page Rowland's attack. Richard Britten was charged with the attack on Page Rowland and, finally, with stalking Ella Durand. Upon pleading not guilty, Richard was released on bail pending trial. He started seeing a psychiatrist. As per normal procedure in the UK, the police did not publicly release Richard's name in connection with the attack on Page Rowland. Therefore,

the media and public were unaware he was charged in connection with that crime. Meanwhile, Richard's blog post, The Benevolent Stalker, which he wrote right after the last time he accosted Ella Durand, had gone viral. After being shared on social media by members of the Wattpag community, it spread like wildfire. It was picked up by popular female-focused news and gossip site Jezebel. The post gave such an incredible insight into the mind of a deranged stalker that some people couldn't believe it was genuinely autobiographical. One reader wrote in response to the article, I don't believe this is real. If this were a true story, it would be utterly terrifying.

But something about it reads fishy. Most readers, however, were sickened and frightened by the delusional rambling and were horrified by the utter disregard the author had for the woman, whom he knew didn't return his feelings, but continued to harass anyway. Some people warned that the behaviour of the delusional author might escalate at some point, without anyone realising that it had already had. One commenter wrote, This thing reads as some sort of over-the-top parody. I mean, it just sounds so utterly batshit insane that no rational person would have a problem thinking

that this kind of behaviour was wrong. He needs some very intensive help, because if this escalates, someone is going to lose their life at his hands. We have been warned. Richard was more prolific with his blogging whilst out on bail. He claimed his psychiatric treatment allowed him to develop awareness and insight into the delusional thinking that previously enveloped him. In his blog post, a revaluation of romance, he said, I now recognise that my behaviour was vile, selfish and deluded. He wrote another about how any psychotics were making him a better person. In that blog, he wrote, You are probably going to hear about the terrible

things I've done because they are likely to make the news once my trials are over. All I can say is, I'm sorry, genuinely. In November 2015, Richard Britton pled guilty to the assault on Page Rowland and to the stalking of Ella Durant. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, with an indefinite order that prevented him from using any electronic device to monitor the movements, follow, communicate, contact or approach either of his victims. Page Rowland has told reporters that the attack had left her fearful, afraid of meeting new people and nervous in big crowds. The once opinionated young woman became frightened to share her views, not just online, but even in a supportive classroom

environment. A few months before he was sentenced, Richard Britton published a poem online called Apology to Scottish Lou, a reference to Page Rowland's Wattpad username, Pagey Lou. Dear Scottish Lou, many things you said left me black and blue, I thought that I was dead. To me you were a shrew, a rascal raging red, but if only I knew, it was all inside my head. Now my mind is true, I feel no more dread, I apologise to you, this poem I hope you've read. Ella Durant told a stalking seminar, quote, I feel incredibly let down by the police, I can't believe it's taken three years to get any sort of justice. If someone had listened to me and acted sooner, then what happened to Page might not

have happened and I would not have been subjected to as long an ordeal. Ella was no longer the bubbly, friendly barmaid ready with a smile and a chat. The three years of living in fear took their toll and she became reclusive. Richard Britton was released after serving just 15 months of his sentence. In early 2017, he was posting online again on a blog he called Putting New Wine in New Bottles. He recounted some of his experiences in prison, including watching the entire series of Dexter and befriending rapist George Cameron. Richard Britton's books remain available for sale, including his deluded fantasy opus to his victim and princess Ella Tundra. Audio of Richard Britton reading the introduction of The World Rose is still online.

Once upon a time, there was a great forest realm. High upon a hill among the yew trees stood a castle. In that castle lived a princess and her name was Ella Tundra. Her hair was golden brown and her eyes were blue like the ocean. Her smile could melt the hearts of knights and her voice was delicate like a leaf in the wind. She was tall and elegant, slender yet well endowed. Tundra was in her name but not her nature. For she was neither cold nor bleak like Tundra, but warm and vibrant like a meadow in summer. At 23 years of age, the princess was world-renowned. Word of her loveliness had spread around the globe to distant lands and far-reaching empires.