By Cameron Winstanley,Darragh Culhane

Copyright irishmirror

A disturbed individual who admitted to stalking retired tennis icon Rafael Nadal’s sister has escaped imprisonment after receiving a suspended jail term.

A Spanish court heard that Sebastian Moll McCarthy made repeated journeys to the Majorcan tennis academy that the two-time Wimbledon champion’s younger sister, Maribel, helps operate, and bombarded the 36 year old with unwelcome phone calls and threatening messages after acquiring her mobile number.

One message stated: “I won’t be able to love you again, I’m going to hurt you.”

In another of the alarming texts, which were regularly sent throughout the night, he wrote about wanting to taste the 36 year old victim’s blood.

The Spanish judge who formally found German national Moll McCarthy guilty after he entered a guilty plea as part of a plea bargain deal, characterised his telephone calls to Nadal’s sister as “multiple and incessant”, reports the Express.

Manuel Nunez Jimenez, in a five-page ruling issued last week following the plea agreement at a court in the Majorcan town of Manacar, declared: “Those calls to the victim’s mobile and her work centre, made with the intention of establishing some sort of contact with her against her will, restricted her personal freedom and left her feeling anguish and unrest over a period of time.

“It seriously affected her both on a personal and professional level to the point that she had always had to be accompanied, sometimes by her dad and sometimes by a friend and other times by security personnel at the tennis centre, both to and from work and on any other daily activity.

“This seriously affected her health and caused her repeated episodes of anxiety out of fear of suffering a physical or sexual attack as a result of the obsession the accused showed towards her.”

State prosecutors had demanded a six-month prison sentence for the German expatriate following his conviction, alongside a three-year restraining order.

He turned up “every day” at Rafael Nadal’s tennis training facility in his home town of Manacor, where Maribel works as deputy general manager, according to the court judgment.

The presiding judge disclosed: “Sometimes he claimed to be a tennis player and others an athlete at the centre.”

Apart from threatening to hurt 22-times Grand Slam winner Rafa’s sister, who alerted the authorities, Moll McCarthy also sent her messages saying: “We can go for a stroll tonight or in a month and afterwards, I think something may change and we can begin something more solid.”

He was convicted of harassment after confessing to his conduct. The judge clarified that he was suspending the prison sentence due to Moll McCarthy’s lack of previous convictions in Spain and his admission of guilt.

Handing down a four-month suspended prison term, the judge also concluded that his behaviour didn’t suggest he was “dangerous” and it was “reasonable” to assume he wouldn’t reoffend.

However, the judge warned the convicted stalker that he risked immediate imprisonment if he broke the law again within the next two years.

In addition to the four-month suspended prison term, Moll McCarthy was slapped with a two-year restraining order, barring him from contacting Maribel Nadal or coming within 300 metres of her home or place of work.

Rafael Nadal, the tennis icon, retired at 38 after representing Spain in the 2024 Davis Cup Finals.

Now a father of two, the tennis legend admitted in February that he hadn’t picked up a tennis racket since retiring from the sport last November.

Maribel is one of three key women in his life, alongside his mother Ana Maria Parera and his wife Mery Perello.