AN EX-HUSBAND launched a poster campaign to falsely accuse his former wife’s new partner of being a child abuser, a court heard.

Glyn Christopher William Piper, 56, spent three days distributing posters and leaflets to residents in Wimborne and Poole in a bid to attack Anthony Clay.

Mr Clay, a mechanic, is in a relationship with Lindsay Piper, the mother to the defendant’s three grown up children.

She and Mr Clay had been in a relationship in the early 2000s but broke up before reconciling in 2019. A court heard that in 2005 Mr Clay was spoken to by the police and social services after two of the children accused him of being physically abusive and violent.

No prosecution was ever brought against him but when he got back together with Mrs Piper, the defendant became ‘triggered’. He distributed hundreds of posters and leaflets in the local community, which Mr Clay said had a negative impact on his business.

The documents included his home address, which Piper had discovered by following the victim home from work one night.

It also included the line: “This grown man punched and kicked a child while the child was cowed on the kitchen floor.

“Is your child safe?”

Mr Clay categorically denied any suggestion of abuse and Piper, of Carlton Road, Bournemouth, was arrested.

He has now appeared at Poole Magistrates’ Court where he pleaded guilty to harassment without violence.

The court heard that Mr Clay coming back onto the scene had left the defendant feeling like he had no other option.

Piper settled on the posters as he thought it was a better way of dealing with the situation than assaulting Mr Clay.

Richard Oakley, prosecuting, said: “He put up a number of posters in the Wimborne and Poole areas that made allegations against Mr Clay. The defendant also sent letters to Mr Clay’s neighbours. He stated he put up every single poster and posted every single letter.

“He told the police that he wanted Tony (Clay) to suffer.

“He thought it was a better than assaulting him or killing him.

“He said he thought the public had a right to know who was living among them.”

James Moore, mitigating, argued that his client was “not a bad man” and that the situation had been ‘forced on him’. He said: “When I first read the case on paper I thought it was a case of a jilted lover but this is not that.

“He loved the fact that his children had a strong family unit, which is something he did not have.

“He promised himself when he had kids that he would never cause his children any harm, physical or otherwise.

“Finding out his children had made these disclosures was his worst nightmare.

“He is not a bad man. He is a man who has had troubles with his children forced upon him.”

Magistrates fined Piper £2,000 and handed him a five-year-restraining order.

None of the allegations made against Mr Clay were of a sexual nature and no charges were ever brought against him.