Croydon man jailed for anonymously stalking and intimidating women

Image by Met Police

A 28-year-old man from Croydon who stalked and intimidated women online, and made a ‘rape list’ which included the names of 191 potential targets has been jailed.

Vishaal Vajpura put up a thread on social media discussing that rape is better than consensual sex and anonymously stalked and messaged victims by creating 28 different accounts. He intricately researched each of his victims and created excel spreadsheets detailing their names, home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, names of relatives and social media usernames.

Vajpura spent around £500 to find all the details about the women on ancestry.com and 192.com, which helped him get all of their family history. He would then use this information to intimidate them and make them feel as if he knew everything about them. He messaged one woman telling her that he was going to film himself raping her and put the video up online for the world to see. Another victim received an unwelcome message from him where he said that he would render her “completely unconscious”.

The police have found essays typed on to his device where he details fantasies of raping and sexually abusing his victims, all of which he had sent as messages to them. If he was blocked by his victims, he would create another account and start harassing them again.

The offender was caught by the police in January 2021 when many of the victims came forward and reported him, and his IP address was then tracked. On 14 June, he appeared in Croydon Crown Court and was sentenced to two years and eight months in custody after pleading guilty to seven counts of stalking which included fear of violence which was declared at a hearing that took place earlier at the same court.

Helen Shaw from the Crown Prosecution Service said, “Vishaal Vijapura carried out a shocking, truly frightening and vicious campaign of stalking against a number of victims. His conduct involved hiding behind a screen and anonymously using social media to threaten to inflict extreme and graphic sexual violence upon his victims.”

“The harmful impact upon his victims cannot be underestimated – many of them described feeling petrified and scared in their own homes as a result of Vijapura’s behaviour. His actions have also continued to have a significant impact upon their day to day lives in the long term.”

“I would like to thank the victims for assisting with this large and complex investigation that has seen Vijapura held to account. Stalking can be deeply distressing, and the CPS is committed to working with the police to root out offenders and bring them before the courts to face justice.”