A woman who bombarded people with messages after taking offence at a joke was branded a Baby Reindeer, a court heard today.
Anne-Marie Hughes is accused of stalking Elizabeth Chadsey, Shanti Wakefield and Lisa-Jane Sayers, mainly through messages sent on social media.
Hughes, 47, denies all the charges, claiming instead her alleged victims engaged in a campaign of “gang-stalking” her.
One of the three women she’s accused of stalking, Elizabeth Chadsey, told Brighton Magistrates Court this afternoon the barrage of messages Hughes sent to her began after the manager of the Master Mariner pub, Samuel James, made a joke about not being on benefits.
Hughes did not react at the time, but that evening began messaging Miss Chadsey, her neighbour, asking her to support her complaint against the pub for his “disablist” comments.
Miss Chadsey said she politely declined, prompting weeks of abuse, including Hughes contacting her elderly father in Canada and strangers with lurid accusations.
She said: “She responded with several text messages and started leaving voicemails and then insulting me in general, saying my ex boyfriend had cheated on me.”
She said Hughes also contacted a stranger connected to a band a friend of Miss Chadsey played with, asking them to tell the friend Miss Chadsey was cheating on him.
And she said Hughes sent hundreds of messages to Samuel James, some of which mentioned her and which Mr James showed to her, including threats to have her evicted, or deported.
Hughes was eventually evicted herself – Miss Chadsey said this was due to rent arrears – in early June.
Miss Chadsey reported the messages to the police, who she said advised her to keep one channel of communication open for evidential reasons, so she unblocked her on WhatsApp.
Soon afterwards, the messages restarted. The court was shown 25 pages of messages, of which Miss Chadsey estimated she had sent about 2 per cent.
Hughes would typically send an all-caps demand for Miss Chadsey to stop contacting her every fifth or sixth message, but then continue to send messages herself.
However, when questioned by Alastair Douglas, who was appointed by the court to across examine witnesses on Hughes behalf as she is representing herself, Miss Chadsey did admit responding on several occasions.
Her replies included references to Hughes as an “unemployed crazy lady”, telling her “what you have done is way beyond serious, you will find that out soon enough” and “get a life and shut up”.
She also said she had posted on the Brighton Marina Facebook group asking people to leave positive comments on the Master Mariner’s Trustpilot page to counter a negative one left by Hughes.
And she said she had seen multiple people refer to Hughes as Baby Reindeer – a reference to the hit Netflix show about a woman who stalks a man.
However, she denied sending the messages in coordination with or in the presence of anyone else, or “gang-stalking” Hughes.
She said: “I’m only human and I was getting really frustrated with the harassment.”
She said the messages only stopped after Hughes was arrested in late June.
Hughes is charged with stalking Miss Chadsey from 5 March 2025 to 23 June 2025, of stalking Shanti Wakefield from 19 September 2025 to 6 October 2025 by sending multiple messages to her, her friends, family and workplace, and Lisa-Jane Sayers by repeatedly messaging her on Facebook Messenger from 17 November, 2026 to 4 December, 2025.
The trial continues.
I was also harassed by this woman and had to go to the police to get her to stop she even implied on a newspaper platform I was responsible for burning a mosque down I recieved 460 messages incuding voice messages in three hours she is malicious and nasty in what she writes
I can believe every word of it. Text book Anne-Marie Hughes. I hope this is a wake up call to her and that she’s held accountable
Do you know her?
I was Anne-Marie Hughes’ former landlord when she lived at Brighton Marina, and reading this article genuinely gave me goosebumps because so much of what is being described sounds incredibly familiar to my own experience.
During the time she was my tenant, I experienced repeated and extremely distressing behaviour, including persistent messaging and contact being made with members of my family and other people connected to me. The condition in which my property was eventually left was also appalling and something I will never forget.
I really empathise with the people giving evidence in this case. Reading about the messages and family members allegedly being contacted brought back a lot of memories of what I personally experienced.
If my experience or any evidence I still have from that period could be relevant to these proceedings, I would be completely willing to speak to the police or give evidence.
My husband and I were also victims.
We had to report her twice within 6 months to the police…
Many many people are coming forward.
The cases at the trial are extreme, but she has hurt, harrassed, scared many many more of us out there
My reply to Nima obviously extends to you and your husband, as well as your friends and family that also got drained of belief and mental energy. I’m strong minded….and she will revel in this. She took me to the edge of being strong minded.
Nima, I know your story because I went through it myself with Anne Marie-Hughes. I know of at least 12 people she has tormented. I know of at least 4 landlords she has defrauded. I have 2 Police Crime numbers when I reported her to the Police. I have rafts of photos, emails and social media bile that she sent me and my family. As we and others know, she is not the victim, she is a very dangerous and manipulative person. Most of her “friends”, were people with learning disabilities and clearly, obeyed every word she said to them. Hollywood film material! Wish you and all other victims who have suffered similar by this person, a healthy future, I, and a few others will also happily supply statements and evidence to help stop this woman find another victim.
She is an absolute abhorrent menace to society. She scared my eleven year old, said she’d reported us (his parents) to his school & the council. I spent hours giving statements to police. She mentioned my mother on social media etc etc. Our case got escalated quite high but the law in this country around digital or online harassment is often misinterpreted or mishandled, even though it amounted to hundreds of messages.
Seeing any semblance of justice served will not come a moment too soon.
This woman clearly need mental help and to be jailed. Reading by the various comments online, she has harassed so many people in Brighton and pretend to be the victim.
I do hope Sussex Police take note of these witnesses.