Dad feared being focused by a hitman after ex accused him of being a paedophile
A father was hit with fears of being targeting by a hit man after his ex started a rumour about him claiming he was a nonce and ruining his reputation
Mark Sullivan, 64
A dad says his life was left in tatters and he feared being targeted by a hitman – after his ex falsely called him a nonce on Facebook. Mark Sullivan, 64, and Deborah Hayes, 58, spent more than seven years together as a happy couple.
But after they split Hayes launched a campaign of harassment on social media – including accusing a “local businessman” of sending “child porn.” Although never named, Mr Sullivan says it was obvious to all who his ex was talking about.
His standing in the community suffered and people even made comments about recruiting a “hitman” to take him out. Hayes was sentenced for harassment last week.
And Mr Sullivan has now revealed how significant a mark the allegations left on him. The chip shop owner, from north-east Hampshire, says he almost lost his livelihood and at one point thought about taking his own life.
He said: “I was contemplating doing something very silly. I’m being very serious – I was in a very dark place.” Mr Sullivan does not want to speak about why he and Hayes split.
But after they did she alluded to a “local businessman” who had “sent child porn pictures via Facebook” and, without naming him, accused Mr Sullivan of having “an STD” just weeks after their break-up. Mr Sullivan says the accusations, and the social media comments which followed, were “soul destroying”.
Mark contacted police after, he says, Facebook refused to remove her posts – some of which contained private information and medical history concerning his children. At the time, the social media site said the posts did not contravene its ‘Community Standards’.
Speaking in the days following sentencing, Mark said: “The comments on these posts were very, very hurtful and scarring. People that had been around my house, her friends, her acquaintances, were saying the most horrendous things about me – that I’m a disgusting human being, I should be reported to the police.
“Someone suggested she get a hitman to take me out. If you can think of any disgusting comment, it was there. People were saying ‘I always thought he was a bit weird’. Just the most horrendous comments you had to read about yourself.”
Mark said things escalated after Ms Hayes began to message his friends and family, even criticising his own children for allowing him to spend time with his grandchildren.
The accusations have threatened his Big Fry Fish and Chips business, located in Hampshire, he says, with local schools and severing their ties with him.
Mark said: “It’s destroyed my business up to this point. I haven’t had any wages since September last year, trade is massively down.
“We’re living through a difficult period so it would have been down anyway, but I have more than one shop and I know what the trading patterns are, and this one has been massively affected. We used to give out hundreds and hundreds of raffle prizes to local schools – we don’t get asked any more. That stopped completely.”
He added: “No-one asks us for raffle prizes any more, no schools. A lady messaged me today and said it went around the local community group.
“That’s all you have to do, tell a couple of people who have young kids and it spreads around the school like wildfire. This is the thing.”
Mark recalled the “embarrassment” of having to tell his own members of staff about the accusations, on advice of the police, in case someone came in to his shop and threatened them. He recalled being inundated with calls from people asking if the accusations were true.
Now, he’s been left looking for closure as he still wonders why the woman he has ‘seven-and-a-half years of great memories’ with decided to turn on him so viciously.
Mark said he believes Facebook should do more to protect people from baseless accusations. He said : “Local community groups have taken over from newspapers.
“You used to get local newspapers with local stories in it, now you get more in-depth on these Facebook posts, it comes to you.
“When someone says there’s a paedophile in the community, of course naturally it’s going to spread like wildfire. I understand that, but from an administration point of view, you should be looking at that and saying ‘we can’t allow that on our group’.”
He added: “If you can verify that story is true, then maybe you allow it – but you can’t allow an unverified story like that to go on your local group, because it’s destroyed me and my business.”
Mark has also called for more support to be offered to male victims of domestic abuse, as a victim of harassment. He said: “A lot of the organisations I’ve rung up, and even ones I spoke to recently, don’t deal with this stuff. It wasn’t until a lady at Surrey Police domestic abuse team contacted me that things started turning around for me.
“She had read the case file and what Debi said on arrest, and she knew what I was going through.
“She introduced me to a counsellor, and between the both of them they helped turn me around, because I was contemplating doing something very silly. I’m being very serious – I was in a very dark place.”
Hayes, from Mytchett, Surrey, pleaded guilty to harassment without violence at a hearing at Staines Magistrates’ Court in December 2025. At a sentencing hearing on April 24, 2026, she was given a three-year restraining order, ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity, and fined £1,000 plus costs of £85 and a £114 victim surcharge.
PC Aimee Worsfold, of Surrey Police, said: “Hayes repeatedly made unfounded and serious comments on her Facebook profile that had the potential to do significant damage to another person.”
“This investigation serves as a warning in this age of living our lives online that we cannot simply make baseless, thoughtless and malicious accusations about others. The impact can be considerable.”
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