Undergraduate who has done mini-pupillages at two top sets tells world about attracting unwanted attention
A Cambridge law student has gone public to reveal that she is the victim of a creepy “dead rubber duck” stalking campaign that sees the perpetrator leave defaced versions of the popular bath toy all over her student digs.
19 year-old Abbie Coombs — who is now in her second year of a law degree at Queen’s College — says that the bizarre campaign stretches back to her time as a fresher.
In a blog for The Cambridge Tab last week, wannabe barrister Coombs — who has undertaken mini-pupillages at top criminal set 25 Bedford Row and Birmingham-based giant No5 Chambers — claims she has found the ducks in her fridge, jewellery box, underwear drawer and even in her bed sheets.
Even more disturbingly, Coombs reports that the ducks are often decapitated or scrawled with bizarre messages. Legal Cheek dug out some of the photo evidence from Coombs’ Instagram feed that she took at the time — and found some pretty weird stuff.
The law student, who admits to failing to always lock her door, has yet to report the matter to the police, preferring to investigate herself. In The Tab article, she explains how she set up a hidden camera inside her criminal law binder in her room but failed to catch the perpetrator in action. On that occasion her bath toy stalker left an orange duck with a knife stabbed into its stomach in her kitchen cupboard instead.
Coombs — who is also a part-time model — says she has received 24 ducks in total, including one left in her underwear drawer that was covered in red nail polish with its mouth and stomach cut open.
The young law student recalls on another occasion, when returning from the law library at around one in the morning, discovering a rubber duck sitting in the middle of a circle of candles, with a star drawn in brown sauce.
Still with no idea who is behind the campaign, Coombs is hoping that it will stop this term now that she has moved to new accommodation. This morning, after her blog reached the mainstream tabloid press, she told The Mirror:
They always seemed to know when I was out — they must have known my timetable or been watching me. No one ever tried to get in when I was in the room. I really hope it doesn’t continue this term, I can’t be dealing with this again.