The Daily Mail reported Robert Beckman was jailed for 21 months for stalking Joe Sugg.

Twenty-one months and a year and nine months are the same length. A campaign the Mail starts in 2022 and a course the BBC puts at 10 years are not the same span. The guilty pleas the Mail reported were at Brighton Crown Court last month. Thursday in Lewes is the sentence.

The Daily Mail reported Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, in a story by Jaya Narain published at 13:51 EDT and updated at 16:17 EDT, that Robert Beckman, 31, was jailed for 21 months after a stalking campaign against Joe Sugg that the Mail said began in 2022. The Mail reported Beckman, who is US-born and whose home it placed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, sent emails, social-media comments, and letters, and that the court heard he believed Sugg was sending him subliminal messages through YouTube posts, including by drinking hot chocolate, and that one hidden message told him to travel from the United States to the United Kingdom. The Mail reported he went to Sugg's London apartment, got into the building, and pushed a folder of documents and letters under the door, that Sugg found the folder, and that Beckman was arrested, told not to contact Sugg, and given a police warning. The Mail reported the letters started again after Beckman returned to the United States. The Mail reported Sugg is 35. It printed his statement: "It has been so mentally exhausting over the years. Mr Beckman is clearly not mentally well." It reported he also said some of the content was sexual in nature, and that he was worried about what would happen if Beckman came to the United Kingdom. The Mail reported he became fearful for himself and for his partner, Strictly dancer Dianne Buswell. It reported that as the couple prepared to welcome a child, the letters increased, and that Beckman wrote he planned to travel again. The Mail named that child later in the story. This story does not. The Mail reported the last letter said he would stay at Hilton London Gatwick, that Sugg could meet him there, and that Beckman sent flight details for an arrival at Gatwick on Aug. 25. The Mail reported Sugg contacted police and officers arrested Beckman on arrival.

The Mail reported Beckman was charged with stalking that caused serious alarm and distress to Sugg, to an extent that had a substantial adverse effect on his usual day-to-day activities, and with failing to hand investigators a key or passcode for an iPhone 13. It reported he pleaded guilty to both charges at Brighton Crown Court last month. It reported that, sentencing him to 21 months at Lewes Crown Court, Judge Stephen Mooney said, "You may have had no unpleasant intentions but Mr Sugg had no way of knowing that." The Mail reported Mooney called the campaign's effect "insidious and corrosive," said Beckman had been told to stop, and said depression and anxiety contributed to the offending he admitted. The Mail reported Mooney said an attempt on Beckman's life was a mark of poor mental health. The Mail reported Mooney told Beckman he would be deported on release and imposed a restraining order preventing him from returning to the United Kingdom for ten years. The Mail reported Buswell is 37, that the couple live near Brighton, and that they were paired on Strictly Come Dancing in 2018. The Oct. 29 story does not print a case number.

The BBC, in a story by Cash Murphy, reported Beckman, 31, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was jailed for a year and nine months after admitting he caused serious distress by messages online and by post and by comments on social media. A year and nine months is 21 months. The BBC did not name Joe Sugg or Dianne Buswell. It reported he had been stalking the man for 10 years, that Sussex Police arrested him at Gatwick Airport on Aug. 25 after he flew from Boston, and that he pleaded guilty at a hearing last month. The Mail did not print Boston. The Mail's campaign begins in 2022. Ten years and a start in 2022 are not the same period. The BBC reported that, according to Sussex Police, he had previously been given a police caution by the Metropolitan Police for harassing the same man in October 2021. October 2021 is before 2022. The Mail did not print that caution. The BBC reported Det Sgt James Gwynne said, "Over the course of 10 years, Beckman's conduct affected the victim's day-to day life, causing him to relocate and change his daily behaviours, impacting both his work and family life." The BBC's sentence is missing a hyphen in "day-to day." The BBC reported that at Lewes Crown Court on Thursday he was handed a 10-year restraining order and ordered not to enter the United Kingdom. The Mail reported deportation on release plus a ten-year restraining order against return. Ordered not to enter, and deported on release, are not the same words. The BBC did not mention the iPhone 13 count, Judge Mooney's name, or Brighton Crown Court. The Mail did not mention Sussex Police by name.

The Mail reported the guilty pleas were to both the stalking count and the phone-passcode count. Those pleas are the convictions on the counts he admitted. The 21-month term is the sentence Judge Mooney imposed, in the Mail's account. The BBC's year and nine months is that same length, and the BBC's account of the plea is the stalking count. Thursday's order did not include a finding about Dianne Buswell as a separate complainant in either account. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.