Pictured: Colin Firth and Livia Giuggioli
Colin Firth’s wife was left ‘living in terror’ when her former lover started stalking her, Italian prosecutors have alleged.
Livia Giuggioli, 48, had a secret romance with journalist Marco Brancaccia while she and her actor husband were temporarily separated.
She later accused her 55-year-old lover of a campaign of harassment when their one-year relationship ended in 2016.
Italian police are now investigating the journalist, who could get five years in jail if he is convicted.
Court sources claim there is enough evidence for Brancaccia to go to trial. Prosecutor Maria Monteleone said: ‘There was evidence of stalking against the victim in the form of messages and emails.
‘She was very frightened and they were serious persecutory acts against her. She had to change her lifestyle because of the messages.
She made her complaint in the prosecutors office in Rome and we recovered material from the defendant’s home.’
Brancaccia is said to have hounded Italian-born Miss Giuggioli with threatening telephone calls and messages.
King’s Speech star Firth, 57, was reportedly alerted when Brancaccia sent him photographs by email.
The pair are said to have exchanged messages, with the actor telling his love rival: ‘You made me suffer but I know you are suffering too.’
Pictured: Marco Brancaccia. The journalist, who works for Italian news agency Ansa, is a childhood friend of Miss Giuggioli
Police have reportedly seized Brancaccia’s computer and phone. The journalist, who works for Italian news agency Ansa, is a childhood friend of Miss Giuggioli.
He is said to have started harassing the producer – who has been married to Firth for more than 20 years – because he could not face being cut out of her life.
The journalist also threatened to write compromising articles about the couple, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Brancaccia has been charged with stalking, but under the Italian legal system a preliminary hearing will be held to decide if it should proceed to a full trial.
A preliminary hearing on Wednesday was meant to be held in Rome but has been postponed until July due to a lawyers’ strike.
Miss Giuggioli and Firth, who married in 1997, have two sons. He thanked her ‘for putting with my fleeting delusions of royalty’ in his Oscar acceptance speech for his role in The King’s Speech.