Hollyoaks star Stephanie Davis has said she was “really scared” and constantly suffering panic attacks before her stalker was jailed last week.
The actress was bombarded with social media messages, letters, and gifts delivered to her home at night.
Alex Boston, 43, was sentenced to 28 weeks in prison on Friday and issued with an indefinite restraining order which bans him from contacting Davis or approaching her home.
Speaking in her first TV interview, the 28-year-old told This Morning: “There were daffodils left outside my drive. That was the first time it started.
“My little boy Caben saw them and said: ‘Mummy, can we take them inside?’
“I didn’t think anything of it, so I let him put them in the plant pot.
“Now, on reflection, if he was watching me, he (the stalker) saw that as a sign of acceptance and it just carried on.
“The daffodils kept coming back.”
Davis, who appeared in Celebrity Big Brother in 2016, explained that she began to see fake accounts popping up on her social media requests.
“I can’t tell you how many there were. I’d block them and he’d make another one.
“There were lengthy messages and disturbing… that’s when I started to notice,” Davis explained.
The TV star was also inundated with cards and letters.
In one letter, which was seven pages long, Boston claimed he loved her and was in a relationship with her, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed.
Speaking about her five-year-old son who she shares with reality television personality Jeremy McConnell, Davis said: “As soon as he (the stalker) mentioned Caben – and he left presents for Caben – my blood started to boil.
“I was really scared.
“I was a single mum, living at home on my own – petrifying. I had to leave my home with Caben – our safe place was violated.”
Davis admitted she eventually moved out to live with her family and was “looking over my shoulder… constantly filled with anxiety”.
She added: “I struggle with my mental health anyway, but when that happened my anxiety was through the roof.
“I was constantly having panic attacks, I couldn’t sleep, I was up and kept checking in on Caben, panicking, imagining he wasn’t there, going through all those motions.”
The actress explained that the stalking began in April 2020 until July 2021 because police struggled to find traces of DNA on his letters and gifts.
Davis said: “The police were checking the letters in forensics and there were no fingerprints on there, he’d wore gloves and he put a blocker to the cameras on the street, so it cut out when he walked past… I felt like I was in The Bodyguard.
“It was like living in a horror film.
“One of the letters, he messed up and left a fingerprint.”
Boston pleaded guilty to stalking at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on November 12 and was handed a 28-week prison sentence on Friday.
Davis, who is best known for playing Sinead O’Connor on Hollyoaks and came to fame on BBC talent series Over The Rainbow, has said she feels “relieved”.
“I slept for the first time in a long time.
“I still think it’ll take a while… even when I left my house yesterday, I’ve got a rustly plant at the end of my drive and it (scared me),” she added.
This Morning airs on weekdays from 10am on ITV and ITV Hub.
