A Melbourne woman who impersonated Home and Away star Lincoln Lewis to stalk strangers was also found guilty of harassing one of her closest friends.

Key points: Catfish Lydia Abdelmalek was stalking her friend at the same time she was preparing to be her bridesmaid

Catfish Lydia Abdelmalek was stalking her friend at the same time she was preparing to be her bridesmaid She had also used the identity of Australian actor Lincoln Lewis to relentlessly stalk and harass two other women

She had also used the identity of Australian actor Lincoln Lewis to relentlessly stalk and harass two other women Abdelmalek was found guilty of stalking six people and will be sentenced in June

The ABC this week revealed 29-year-old Lydia Abdelmalek was found guilty of a series of stalking charges, after she bombarded two Queensland women with abusive and threatening messages.

The saga had a tragic impact on the victims.

But the stalking was not confined to strangers.

One charge relates to one of Abdelmalek's high school friends.

The court heard the victim, Catherine*, received an eerie message from an anonymous number via the messaging application Viber.

"How long hav u and Jeremy* been close? (sic)" it read.

Jeremy was an old high school friend Catherine had bumped into earlier that day.

Catherine, not recognising the number, asked the person to identify themselves.

"Just some 1 wonderin the answer 2 that qstn (sic)."

Betrayal of trust

Immediately, Catherine was unsettled.

She spoke with her fiance about the strange text.

Together they filed a complaint with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN) and deleted the application Viber to try and block the harasser.

But that only antagonised the stalker.

Catherine received a message on a different application, WhatsApp.

"You deleted Viber, don't you want us to message you? Bad move," it read.

The threats continued.

"Won't happen 1nce we send ur fianc our little info pak about who u really r as a person blockn us on viber was a big mistake (sic)."

Catherine turned to her old friend, Lydia Abdelmalek, for support.

Abdelmalek was a member of Catherine's bridal party and was preparing to be one of Catherine's bridesmaids.

She was studying psychology.

Abdelmalek claimed to know a police officer who could investigate the situation.

She seemed to be the perfect friend to turn to.

Mind games

But Adbelmalek was not only the very person behind the harassment, she also used her friend's trust to further manipulate the situation.

As the harassment continued, she pointed the finger at Catherine's other friends, saying they wanted to break up the marriage.

When Catherine wanted to hire a private investigator to look into the stalking, Abdelmalek convinced her not to because her family friend was already on the case.

Abdelmalek, oddly, pulled out of the wedding at the last minute.

Police were closing in on Abdelmalek after she had spent years using fake online profiles to stalk and harass two women in Queensland.

Her home in Melbourne's northern suburbs was raided in April 2016 and large volumes of evidence were collected.

It was not enough to stop Abdelmalek.

She doctored the police warrant and used it to convince Catherine that another person had been arrested for the stalking, police told the court.

Lydia Abdelmalek's own online accounts revealed nothing of her double life. ( Facebook: Lydia Abdelmalek )

But Abdelmalek was on borrowed time.

Police linked a phone number used to harass Catherine to a number used to torment the Queensland victims.

Abdelmalek was arrested a year after the initial arrest and charged with stalking Catherine.

Catherine told the Heidelberg Magistrates' Court the manipulation caused her great anxiety.

"I couldn't sleep," Catherine recounted to the court.

"I cried every day. It was the worst year of my life.

The 'resentful stalker'

Paul Mullen, a professor emeritus at Monash University, has spent decades studying stalkers.

He says each case is different, but the perpetrator in this case seems to fit the profile of what's classified as a "resentful stalker".

"They are often people who have never had any power or any ability really to control or affect their world," Professor Mullen said.

"Suddenly they have power and they have power over someone else and that can really be quite addictive."

"It's this combination of avenging yourself against the individual or the world for not making you attractive enough, not giving you the job you wanted, plus this sense of having power over someone at last and that is sufficient motivation to devote their lives to making someone else's life utterly intolerable."

Professor Mullen says the resentful stalker can target strangers who have lives they desire but can also focus on friends, as Abdelmalek did with Catherine.

"Sometimes the person who is doing it is a workmate or someone they know and they can then take this role of both being the persecutor and the comforter," Professor Mullen said.

Do you know more about this story? Email vicindepth@abc.net.au

"I mean nothing could be better for the resentful stalker really because they then get the joy of the power and it further enables them to feel contemptuous towards this person as they share their feelings and their pain with them."

He says the extent of the stalking outlined by police in the Abdelmalek case is staggering.

"I have never come across such extraordinary persistence and ability."

"It's obvious that this took immense energy and an immense ability, a misdirected ability, to be able to sustain such a destructive pretence for so long."

Abdelmalek was found guilty of stalking six people and will be sentenced in June.

*Names and some details have been changed to protect victims.