Well-wishers have donated £200 to help a ‘Pull-a-Pig’ victim pay off her flights to Amsterdam after an appalled supporter set up a JustGiving page.
Sophie Stephenson, 24, from Stoke, claimed Dutch student Jesse Mateman tricked her into paying £350 to fly to The Netherlands after a holiday romance in Spain.
She said he then sent her a text to say ‘You’ve been pigged’ when she landed in Amsterdam.
And now supporters are aiming to raise £500 to reimburse Miss Stevenson for her wasted trip.
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And now supporters are aiming to raise £500 to reimburse Miss Stevenson for her wasted trip
Holiday fling…? Miss Stevenson says she slept with ‘heartless’ Mr Mateman, top left, during her stay in Barcelona – and claims he bombarded her with text messages to get her to fly to see him in Amsterdam, a claim he denied
Miss Stevenson says she forked out £350 on a flight to see holiday romance Jesse Mateman after the couple met in Barcelona, during August
Gillian Rolet wrote on the JustGiving fundraising page: ‘In light of this horrific story, let’s come together and help to show our love and solidarity with wonderful Sophie!
‘The whole concept of “pull-a-pig” is horrendous, and every little detail about this particular story is completely enraging, and unforgivable. This sad little man has ignited an army of angry people, who actually have morals, against him.’
Mr Mateman had insisted he broke off all contact with bar manager Miss Stevenson after their holiday fling in Barcelona this summer.
But the 21-year-old Dutch student later admitted he did sleep with Ms Stevenson, and claims while he cannot remember calling her a ‘pig’, if he did it was ‘in relation to their sex’ rather than her appearance.
Meanwhile 24-year-old Miss Stevenson spoke out on ITV yesterday to say ‘I am so embarrassed and humiliated’.
Ms Stevenson claims she enjoyed a holiday fling with Jesse Mateman in Barcelona over the summer before flying to his native Amsterdam to rekindle their romance.
She said Mateman messaged her after she arrived at Schiphol saying: ‘You were pigged’ and added two pigs and laughing face emojis adding, ‘It was all a joke.’
Heartbroken Miss Stevenson replied: ‘How could you be so cruel though!’
Her furious mother told the ITV show today: ‘He [Mateman] is trying to make out she’s lying. But we know the truth and he knows the truth’.
Sophie and Julie Stevenson slammed the cruel joke on This Morning, adding the ‘truth’ would come out
Ms Stevenson told This Morning: ‘It’s embarrassing its humiliating, I’ve done this because I don’t want it to happen to other girls.’
And her mother Julie added: ‘I dropped her off [at the airport] in the morning she was so excited. Then she told me he’d not turned up, I was devastated.
‘I’ve seen what he’s done to her – she hasn’t wanted to leave the house at all, go out, go to work, he’s knocked her self-confidence.
‘He’s trying to make out she’s lying. I’ve been there when she’s on the phone to him. Am I lying as well then?
‘At the end of the day, if he wants to live with what he’s saying, we know what’s the truth, and he knows what’s the truth.
‘And it has come and bit him on the backside in my eyes, what he’s done.’
One viewer tweeted This Morning saying: ‘The only pig in the story is him.’
Mateman’s lawyer Yehudi Moszkowicz said: ‘If Mateman used the word ‘pig’ in a text message to Stevenson – which he cannot remember – it could only have been sent during his stay in Spain’
The text sent by Mateman (pictured), allegedly read: ‘You were pigged’ and added two pigs and a laughing face emojis before adding, ‘It was all a joke’
Ms Stevenson claimed she spent some £350 on a flight to Amsterdam to meet Mateman after they spoke ‘every day’ and that he invited her to the Netherlands to meet him.
She said: ‘Pulling a pig’ is where a guy tries to pull the fat ugly girl. When I saw that message, I wanted to be sick.’
Student Mateman, 21, had vociferously denied the allegations and insisted he broke off all contact with Miss Stevenson after their break.
On Monday, Mr Mateman denied having had any kind of relationship, telling MailOnline: ‘I’ve been in a hotel room with her, but I never slept with her. We are not and never were in love, as suggested.
‘We actually met in Barcelona, but I never had a romance with her.’
‘There was no romance with Sophie. We did not sleep together and I did not message her everyday. That is just fantasist rubbish and it is ruining my life.’
He denied messaging Sophie at all after meeting her in Spain.
Yesterday, however, he admitted he slept with Ms Stevenson.
The bar worker said Mateman then messaged her after she arrived at Schiphol airport
Mateman’s lawyer Yehudi Moszkowicz said: ‘Mateman had only contact with Stevenson during his stay in Barcelona. The contact was very short lived and not of an amorous nature.
‘Mateman wants to emphasize that the text messages as published in the media do not come from him. If Mateman used the word ‘pig’ in a text message to Stevenson – which he cannot remember – it could only have been sent during his stay in Spain and can only relate to the way in which they had sex [sic].
‘It has in any case not been related to her person or appearance.’
Mr Mateman told MailOnline: ‘After Barcelona, I did not have any telephone contact with her.
‘The messages contained in those tabloids are either made by Sophie or by the newspapers, because I did not send them. ‘
He said he had no idea she would be in Schiphol [Amsterdam] after she claimed they had arranged to meet.
‘In fact, I wonder if Sophie has been at Schiphol at all. I have no idea,’ he went on.
Her mother Julie Stevenson said her daughter is ‘in absolute bits’ after falling victim to the alleged ‘stunt’ that sees creepy men compete to chat up women they deem to be ‘the fat ugly girl’.
Julie told MailOnline: ‘It is a good job this lad lives in Holland because if he was here I’d string him up.
‘He would call her everyday and Sophie was so excited and would go off and take the call.’
‘He said he wanted to come and visit her in Manchester and was planning a visit.
He then said he could not wait and asked if Sophie would come over to Amsterdam.
‘Sophie said as she was getting on the plane he was calling her and telling her he couldn’t wait to meet her at the hotel.
‘It just shows you the lengths he was going to to make a fool of my daughter.’
Distraught: Sophie’s mother Julie Stevenson said her daughter is ‘in absolute bits’ after falling victim to the alleged ‘stunt’
This mock-up shows the alleged conversation between Miss Stevenson and her apparently cruel prankster lover
The alleged prankster, from the southern town of Doetinchem, Netherlands, has faced a backlash in his home country, where he was attacked as ‘a male-chauvinist pig’.
Julie added: ‘He has shattered her confidence and most nights she just sits there in tears. It is breaking my heart to see how this has affected her. Why would any man do that to a woman. It is just heartless.
‘She let me know she had arrived and about three hours later she called from the hotel to say he wasn’t there. She thought something might have happened to him and said she would wait.
‘After about six hours she rang me howling down the phone in tears and told me about the pig text message he had sent her.
‘I couldn’t believe it and felt devastated for Sophie as she had so been looking forward to the trip. I told her to get on the first plane home.
‘She has been humiliated by that man and I don’t know why.
‘Why would he go to such lengths to string her along for all this time.’
Meanwhile Sophie’s father Andrew told the Sun: ‘As soon as I heard I wanted to go over there and find him.
Miss Stevenson said she ‘felt sick’ when she received the messages revealing her holiday romance was all a joke
So angry: Julie Stevenson told MailOnline she wanted to ‘string up’ Jesse Mateman after the cruel prank that left her daughter at the airport
‘She is a beautiful, confident, gorgeous girl and how dare that b*****d do anything like this.’
Julie said her daughter and Dutchman Jesse Mateman had bonded while on holiday in Barcelona and getting caught up in the terror attack.
She told MailOnline: ‘They felt they had a connection because of what happened in Barcelona, but he was probably planning this all along. My daughter really thought he had some feelings for her, but instead he has been planning this all along.
‘It hurts me so much to see her so dejected. It is going to take a lot to build up her confidence. Something should be done to this man to make him stop. You have to wonder if there are others he has tricked or what he will do next time.’
The humiliated bar supervisor had been excited to be reunited with Mateman and travelled some 500 miles only, it seems, to be brutally dumped.
The 24-year-old broke down in tears as she came to terms with her rejection alone in a foreign country.
Claims: Sophie says her confidence has been shattered by the alleged cruel prank
Mateman was said to be messaging her minutes before her departure – but when she arrived in Amsterdam he allegedly ignored her calls.
They had slept together after meeting when they were caught up in the Barcelona terror attack which killed 13 people and injured 130, on August 17.
Miss Stevenson said: ‘All my friends and family cannot believe someone could be so cruel. It’s one thing to have a joke, but this goes well beyond banter.’
Holed up with their pals in the Pension Solarium – a one minute walk from the attack in August – the group struck up a relationship and Miss Stevenson and Mateman paired off.
She said: ‘I went to Barcelona with my friend Michelle and we arrived the day before the terror attack. We were staying really close to where the attack happened.
‘On that day, we were so lucky, we’d just nipped out to buy some drinks and food and were sitting on the terrace when we started hearing gunshots.
‘When we looked over we saw people running everywhere, it was really scary.
‘The hotel was on lockdown after that and everything was shut for the day, so we stayed in and that’s when we met Jesse and his three friends.
‘We were there for four more days, and felt safe while we were with them, so we hung out loads.
‘It was a proper holiday romance for Jesse and me. We slept together in Barcelona and when I came back to the UK, we carried on talking every day.
‘We talked about having a long distance relationship.’
Back in the UK, Miss Stevenson carried on messaging and calling Mateman, and they discussed giving things a go.
The pair planned for her three-day visit and she spent £350 on a hotel and flights, travelling from Manchester to Amsterdam on September 29.
She said: ‘We had talked about me coming to visit, and he knew I’d booked flights, that I’d paid for a hotel and he was going to meet me when I arrived at 5pm on Friday.
‘We were talking up until I got on the plane. But when I arrived, he wasn’t there to pick me up.
‘I called him a bunch of times, and he didn’t answer. I waited at the airport for two hours and I hadn’t heard anything, I was really starting to panic about being abandoned.
‘There was a free shuttle bus to the hotel, so I made my way there and six hours later he finally messaged me – on Snapchat.’
‘Pranked’: Sophie said she forked out £350 on the flight after being invited to the Dutch capital by her Jesse, who she met in Barcelona in August.
Mateman swiftly blocked Miss Stevenson after his alleged taunting messages.
She added: ‘I was in a foreign country, on my own and the guy that I liked had just abandoned me.
‘I replied and said ‘how could you be so cruel’ and all he did was block me.. I just couldn’t believe it.
‘I had no way of contacting him. I was petrified being in Amsterdam all on my own.
‘I was so upset about what happened that I changed my flights so I could head home the next morning.
‘I am furious that this happened and it’s so dangerous. I want people to know what happened to me so that this never happens to anyone else.’
Miss Stevenson, who has been unable to contact Mr Mateman since the incident, said her friends and family are mortified.
She said: ‘Given the circumstance of how we met, you’d think that he’d be slightly more sensitive. I can’t believe this has happened to me.’