Multimillionaire’s daughter convicted of stalking and dubbed London’s most dangerous woman launches last-ditch appeal against being extradited from Ireland to UK

• Farah Damji, 55, was jailed for five years in 2016 for stalking a church warden 
• Daughter of property tycoon Amir Damji made her victim’s life ‘complete hell’ 
• She then made ‘character assassinations’ about people she couldn’t talk about 
• Damji was convicted of two counts of breaching her restraining order in 2020
• She fled and European Arrest Warrant was issued to extradite Damji from Ireland 
• Now she is trying to fight it and the extradition order is stayed until 24 August 

A convicted stalker once dubbed London’s ‘most dangerous’ woman has launched a last-ditch appeal against her extradition from Ireland following her arrest last week.

‘Manipulative’ Farah Damji, 55, the daughter of a South African-born property tycoon Amir Damji, was jailed for five years in 2016 for making a church warden’s life ‘complete hell’ by stalking him after he spurned her sexual advances. 

While languishing in her prison cell for this crime, Damji raised £5,000 asking for donations on Twitter to hire a top QC to appeal the conviction in November 2016 and also published ‘character assassinations’ online of individuals she was prohibited from referencing.

Also known as Farah Dan, she fled during her trial in the UK and was convicted in her absence of twice breaching a restraining order by Southwark Crown Court in February 2020 and jailed for 27 months. 

During her court case, she presented herself as an Icelandic national to Irish border security and not as a criminal who has a record for fraud stretching back to the 1990s.

Damji, who also ran an art gallery in Manhattan in the 1990s, was due to be extradited from Ireland today but the order has been stayed until next week.

Farah Damji, 55, breached a restraining order twice and was convicted in her absence in 2020 after she fled the UK

She was arrested in Ireland last week and has launched an appeal against her extradition to the UK

Kingston Crown Court heard in 2016, that Damji met her first victim, who is in his 40s, after contacting him through an online site in October 2013.

The notorious socialite was also jailed for 15 months for a £17,500 housing benefit fraud.

Dan and the victim met to discuss her social housing firm. Following their meeting Dan, initiated a sexual encounter, but an agreement was made between the two to limit their relationship to a business level. 

In December 2013, Dan invited the victim to her company’s Christmas party, where she again attempted to seduce the man.

The victim, who is a married man with children rebuffed the advance which prompted a campaign of harassment. 

And before her conviction in 2020 for violating her restraining order, Damji had complained that a police officer – one of many names she is forbidden from mentioning – had ‘scared’ her elderly mother by contacting her without permission in a message sent to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements.

She also penned a letter to a government body accusing the investigating officer of her case of ‘stalking and harassing her’, Southwark Crown Court heard. 

Farah Damji, 53, was jailed for five years in 2016 for stalking a church warden after meeting him on an online dating site

Judge Michael Gledhill in 2020 said while sentencing her: ‘She has made herself absolutely scarce so that the police cannot find her.

‘In my view this defendant is extremely manipulative.

‘She has done her best to disrupt the smooth running of these proceedings from the moment she arrived at this court.

‘She is playing the system and she continues to play the system, in my view.’

A European Arrest Warrant was issued to extradite Damji after it transpired that she had fled to Ireland. She has been wanted in the UK to serve the remainder of her prison sentence.

From Ireland she fired off a series of tweets making clear that she would not ‘submit any further to the English and Welsh criminal justice system’, judge Gledhill had said.

The stalker was arrested in Dublin in August 2020 and remanded in custody for seven months before she obtained bail.

But Damji was arrested in Co Galway last week and remanded in custody.

Members of An Farda Siochana arrested her at a property on a bench warrant issued following her failure to appear at court for extradition hearings, it is claimed.

She had fought against her surrender to the UK at the Supreme Court of Ireland in June and was on bail while judges considered her appeal.

It is said that she breached bail conditions, in that she failed to appear in court when judges were considering her case, triggering a bench warrant seeking her arrest.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued to extradite Damji after it transpired that she had fled to Ireland. She has been wanted in the UK to serve the remainder of her prison sentence 

Ms Damji was convicted for breaching restraining orders and sentenced to 27 months in prison, having absconded from the court after three days of her trial

Last week, Mrs Justice Leonie Reynolds remanded her in custody and lifted the ‘stay’ that had suspended her extradition while her appeal was being considered.

Damji was due to appear at Southwark Crown Court today for the execution of a bench warrant.

A court official said that she had been due to be extradited from Ireland yesterday evening but put in a last-minute appeal to the court in Ireland against her extradition meant it had been stayed until Wednesday, 24 August. 

Damji was jailed for the first time in 2010 for a £17,500 benefit fraud and she has numerous convictions for fraud, theft and perverting the course of justice, it is said. 

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