I want Ravi-only

Toneeta Beckford from Smethwick has been convicted for harassing Crimewatch TV star Rav Wilding, follwing a barrage of threating messages to that ended the stars engagement and threated his life.

The 24-year-old, of New Hope Road, Smethwick, posted a message on her Facebook site saying that her threat that the presenter should prepare for “Judgement Day” was only meant as a “joke” following a number of messages sent via Facebook, Twitter and the Crime watch presenter’s personal website between September 6 and December 14 last year.

One warned him: ‘Don’t **** with me Rav… I will see you right on Judgment Day.’

Another said: ‘Who the **** do you think you are? It’s not your world, it’s Allah’s… you will see me go to Paradise and I will see you go to Hell.’

Toneeta Beckford a Muslim convert, sent Mr Wilding messages containing extremist religious rants. Mr Wilding, who was appearing on the BBC1 show Strictly Come Dancing at the time, told magistrates yesterday: ‘The messages made me feel threatened because of the religious extremist views.’

Former Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando was gunned down on her doorstep in Fulham, West London in April 1999. Fearing a similar attack he went on to say: ‘Obviously in the nature of my work on Crimewatch and my predecessor being murdered in her job, I have to take security very, very seriously.

Hours after she was found guilty of harassment by Warley Magistrates Beckford wrote: “Judgement Day etc etc everybody laughs when I say that I said that it was just a joke!!

“I am from ghetto dis is how we talk ennit it’s the norm round here I meant no harm.”

Mr Wilding told the court the messages were ‘very, very scary’.

The stress caused by the alleged harassment led to the breakdown of his engagement to Lauren Alcorn, a former girlfriend of England football captain Rio Ferdinand.

Beckford, from Smethwick, West Midlands, admitted sending the messages but denied they amounted to harassment.

She said she wrote them while suffering from depression and under the influence of alcohol after the death of her partner.

Beckford denied the charge of harassment, but magistrates took only 15 minutes to convict her. She will be sentenced on April 30 2010.