ITV weather star’s obsessed ex jailed after fitting tracking device to her car
ITV weather presenter Ruth Dodsworth’s controlling husband placed a tracking device on her car to check if she was having an affair.
Jealous Jonathan Wignall, 54, has been jailed for three years and given a restraining order after plaguing the 45-year-old, who is a regular on regional news in Wales and London and has been on This Morning.
He set an alarm to check her nightly forecasts, rang her dozens of times a day demanding to know where she was and who she was with, Cardiff crown court was told. Wignall would accuse her of having an affair and would demand to check her phone.
Dodsworth once woke to find the music promoter pressing her fingerprint on her phone so he could gain access. The mother-of-two broke down in tears as she told the court she had to ‘portray a smiley, happy, sunshine-like personality every day’ while he made her feel the opposite.
‘Living with Jonathan was like constantly walking on eggshells, his temper would turn on an instant and
anything could trigger it,’ she added. She left her husband of 17 years in 2019 after he bombarded her with more than 150 phone calls in one day and was arrested for harassing her. But after they split, Wignall placed a tracking device on her car. Dodsworth became suspicious when she spotted him while driving home from a remote area and took her car to a garage.
Prosecutor Claire Pickthall said the bugging device was found under the car’s steering wheel.
‘Shortly after it being discovered, when the car was still at the garage, the defendant arrived and demanded to know what work was being done on the car,’ she added.
Police seized Wignall’s laptop and phone after his arrest in October 2019 and found an app linked to the tracking device that he accessed more than 250 times in three weeks. Wignall, of Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, admitted controlling and coercive behaviour. Judge Daniel Williams told Wignall he had the air of a respectable businessman but was really ‘a fantasist with a fragile ego which makes you an unrepentant, possessive bully.’