A former television presenter who bombarded Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan with vulgar and threatening phone messages has been spared jail, but warned she faces five years behind bars if she contacts the millionaire businessman again.

Tara Stout, a former BBC and Sky TV reporter, received a 26-week sentence last Friday, suspended for two years, and was also ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

Lovestruck Stout, 35, who represented herself throughout the trial, was found guilty of two counts of harassment between March 2005 and July 2006, after City of Westminster Magistrates' Court heard how she contacted Mr Jordan up to 200 times a day at the peak of her campaign.

The court heard Stout refused to leave Mr Jordan alone after a week-long fling, sending him disturbing, sexually explicit messages as well as abusive ones in which she threatened to "gut" his mother and "slice" his nieces.

She left him unwanted presents at his hotel, including naked photos of herself, love letters and underwear and billed him for shopping trips.

She also read long extracts from books to fill up his voicemail box and even posted a photo of Mr Jordan on a dating website, saying he was a transvestite named Susan.

Stout, from Clapham, had already breached a restraining order earlier this year and spent five weeks in Holloway prison for contacting Mr Jordan, despite police warnings.

Stout appeared at her sentencing flamboyantly dressed, wearing knee high fishnet tights, red stilettos, a black polka-dot mini-dress, a red flower in her hair and a crucifix necklace.

Before receiving her sentence, she said: "I would like to apologise for using my knowledge of British law to force this case into a courtroom, when I could have easily have prevented it from reaching this eventuality.

"I admit I have knowingly and wilfully manipulated the system, using up common resources in the process in order to voice my opinions with the benefit of privilege."

District judge Quentin Purdy told Stout: "It was a wilful and sustained campaign against Mr Jordan, not just by telephone mobile and landline, but also the business of delivering things to his hotel.

"Do not contact Mr Jordan or members of his family - breach that and you are at risk of five years imprisonment."

Stout previously made headlines when it was reported she sent flirtatious messages to Gary Lineker and when she streaked through Soho last April to protest about being evicted from her flat.