CPS solicitor accused of stalking wife ‘told her she was “a prostitute” after she admitted affair’ 

A Crown Prosecution Service solicitor accused of stalking his judge wife told her she was a ‘prostitute’ and a ‘dirty little slut’ after she admitted having an affair, a court has heard.  

Scott Ainge, 47, is accused of a ‘relentless and determined’ campaign of harassment against his now ex-wife Kate Ainge, 41, and using the CPS computer system to look up previous convictions of her new lover, Andrew Thompson.

Giving evidence from behind a screen at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday, Ms Ainge said that in the weeks after she moved out of the family home in Leyland, Lancashire, and into her parents’ house, Ainge would visit every day.

She said: ‘He used to come up behind and call me a “prostitute” and a “dirty little slut” and he’d whisper it in my ear.’

Asked how it made her feel, she said: ‘Intimidated, frightened, upset.’ 

Ms Ainge, who said she had suffered from depression previously, told the court her husband believed she had bipolar disorder but she went to see a psychiatrist who told her she did not.

She said: ‘Scott had told me that all my behaviours were because him and some other people from church had diagnosed me with bipolar.’

The court heard that in October 2016 Ms Ainge, a district judge, had been with Mr Thompson at the Railway pub in Leyland following a retirement party for a magistrate, when Ainge arrived.

She said: ‘He then started telling people I was bipolar disordered, that I was his wife, that I was having an affair and just humiliating me generally.’

He approached Mr Thompson and the pair ‘squared up’ to each other, Ms Ainge said.

She said when they left the pub Ainge followed her back to friend Gavin Hall’s house and told him she was a suicide risk.

Ms Ainge said she had met her husband in 2003, when she was working as a legal adviser in criminal courts in Preston and he was a defence solicitor, and married him in 2006.

She told the court their marriage had deteriorated before she met Mr Thompson in May 2016.

She said: ‘We had no common interests, common values or any sort of commonality in terms of what we wanted in life.’

She said Ainge became very involved in the church and would spend time at home reading the Bible while she was in another room messaging friends or on Facebook.

She added: ‘Scott believed he was put on earth as a Christian to be punished so we could go on to live a better life. I didn’t share that.’

She told the court she revealed her affair to him in September 2016, but also suspected Ainge had other relationships during their marriage.

She said that following their split she discovered he had fathered a child with a friend’s wife.

The court heard Ainge told his estranged wife he was having her followed and showed her pictures which had been taken of her car.

Asked how it made her feel, Ms Ainge said: ‘Very vulnerable, massively vulnerable.’

Earlier in the trial, the court heard that Ainge monitored her social media accounts and accessed her personal emails, including sexually explicit messages exchanged between Ms Ainge, her friends and her lover. 

He also allegedly threatened to reveal these to her boss, her family and friends. 

Ainge denies stalking between September 2016 and January 2018 and five counts of unauthorised access of information under the Computer Misuse Act.

The trial will continue on Monday.