A teacher from Gourock sent bullets in the post to a man who had an affair with his wife 13 years ago — complete with a threatening letter purporting to be from Irish terrorists.

The Greenock Telegraph reports Michael Gaffney — who also falsely branded his victim a ‘rapist’ and a ‘drug dealer’ — hunted him down via social media before launching a seven-month campaign of intimidation and racial abuse.

The 52-year-old, right, even went to the man’s home — where he resides with his partner and children — and sent letters to his neighbours in a bid to smear his character over events dating back to 2003.

Gaffney’s letter to the man — which included two imitation bullets and a racial slur — stated: “One warning only. You will be shot.

“No more hiding behind doors and your woman, cowardly liar, crook and fraudster.

“Now a target.

“Remove from this address in Greenock now. Last chance.”

Gaffney signed off the letter – which had typewritten words cut out and glued to a sheet of A4 paper – with the message: “Belfast Continuity. One warning only.”

The school teacher — who is facing a possible prison term — sent the correspondence last Halloween when one of his victim’s children was preparing to celebrate her birthday.

Gaffney’s target told Greenock Sheriff Court: “There was a chance that she could have opened it and read that horrible racist slur.”

The man said: “I was scared to leave the house. I knew that he could afford to hire someone.

“There was nothing else going on in my life that would have caused anyone to have a grudge against me.”

The court heard that Gaffney’s Ukranian-born wife had met the man at the Cafe Continental, pictured top right, in Gourock in October 2003 — just three months into her marriage with the teacher — and went back to his house with him.

She made up an imaginary friend called ‘Olga’ as cover for each time she visited the man, whom she had originally told her husband was helping her with a job application.

Gaffney said that he embarked on a one-man ‘social care’ crusade to expose the man after his wife told him in March last year that he had date raped her nearly 12 years previously after spiking her drink with a drug.

He said: “It was like an atomic bomb going off in my face.”

The partner of Gaffney’s victim told the court that she was ‘sickened’ by the bullets-in-the-post letter.

The woman said: “I started to cry. I was scared and terrified.”

History and modern studies teacher Gaffney first used the ‘Everything Inverclyde’ Facebook page to make enquiries about his target before sending messages via the social network to his partner and around 500 of her online friends — including her children — containing the false allegations about him.

Gaffney — who will now be reported to the General Teaching Council over his behaviour — sent letters to 10 of his victim’s neighbours, repeating the claims.

He also tracked the man’s partner to her place of work and told her in person of the rape allegation.

Gaffney told the court that his wife finally confessed last October that she had been having a consensual relationship with the man in 2003. But despite that claim, he admitted sending a text message to a family member in April last year which stated that his spouse admitted her infidelity in March.

Gaffney claimed in court that the affair had been in his ‘own head’ at that point and he was mixing anti-depressants with alcohol.  The court heard that he reported the rape allegation to the police in April after his wife — from whom he was separated at the time — had gone to Ukraine for a ‘short break’.

But after she returned she refused to make any report of a sexual assault against the man Gaffney was accusing.

Two women who received his Facebook posts told of their shock at what the school teacher — whom they didn’t know of previously — was claiming.

One witness told the court: “I asked him to stop sending the messages to the woman’s friends because her children would be upset by them.”

The other witness told how the victim’s partner had to go to a doctor and be put on medication as a result of Gaffney’s actions. Gaffney, who was represented in court by defence lawyer Aidan Gallagher, waged the Facebook front of his campaign between May 7 and July 22.

He said that he considered it to be his ‘moral duty’. Gaffney stated: “My wife told me in October 2015 that she had been having a consensual relationship by December 2003, but she was still adamant that the first occasion wasn’t consensual.”

Cross-examining, procurator fiscal depute David Glancy put it to Gaffney: “So this was a relationship that started out with your wife being raped and then became consensual?”

Gaffney replied: “Yes.”

Mr Glancy pointed out that there were emails ‘both ways’ between his wife and the man she had been seeing which show two people to be on ‘very amicable terms with nothing suggestive of criminality’.

The prosecutor asked: “Why send the Facebook messages in May if the matter had been reported to the police in April? You lost the plot and fixated on this man.”

Gaffney responded: “Absolutely not.”

Mr Glancy went on: “You had him in the crosshairs.”

Gaffney answered: “Absolutely not.”

When Mr Glancy put it to him that this was ‘a matter for the police’, Gaffney replied: “Yes, but I felt I couldn’t wait for the police.”

Mr Glancy then asked Gaffney: “There were real people being badly hurt by your activities online. Someone had to go on to medication. Was she just collateral damage?”

Gaffney said: “I don’t accept that.”

Mr Glancy said that if it wasn’t Gaffney who had sent the letters then it was ‘one heck of a coincidence that someone else was pursuing him in this manner’.

The prosecutor added: “It culminated in a letter with two plastic bullets attached. You sent that.”

Gaffney insisted: “I did not.”

Mr Glancy added: “You were pursuing a man in the delusion that he raped your wife.

“You’ve got something in your head and it’s grown and this is the result of it.”
Gaffney said: “Absolutely not.”

Sheriff Thomas Ward found Gaffney, of Darroch Drive, guilty of engaging in a course of conduct between 1 March and 1 November 2015, including making enquiries via social network sites to trace the man and state repeatedly that he was a rapist under investigation by police, as well as sending postal packets to his neighbours falsely stating that he was a rapist and a drug dealer.

Gaffney was also convicted of, on 31 October 2015, sending a postal packet containing two imitation bullets, causing the complainer and his wife to be placed in a state of fear and alarm.

Sheriff Ward deferred sentence until August for a background report and advised Gaffney to ‘be as honest as possible’ with its preparation.
He was bailed to appear again then.