A VALENTINE'S Day card has been removed from sale after a police chief said it used stalking "as a joke" - but other similar designs remain online.

Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne - who has been a victim of stalking - said the products "romanticises" the crime.

Following her remarks, greetings card company Thortful took down design that included the phrase: "Stalker? I prefer to say, future husband".

Ms Bourne also slammed products on Etsy including one featuring a character from hit Netflix series You, which includes gruesome scenes of kidnapping and murder.

READ MORE >> Sussex PCC Katy Bourne speaks of 'misery' after menacing email

She asked the gift website to remove cards with the messages, "happy Valentines from your favourite stalker", "you say stalker, I say devoted" and "stalker is a strong word, I prefer Valentine".

Writing on Twitter, Ms Bourne said: “Please do not use stalking as a form of a joke on your valentine’s cards out of respect for the thousands of victims living in fear of this awful crime.”

Ms Bourne, who spotted the offensive designs while shopping for a Valentine's Day card for her husband, faced years of torment from a stalker.

Her stalker made unfounded claims about her online and was a threatening presence at events she attended in Sussex.

The courts imposed a civil injunction to prevent her stalker from contacting or writing about her and when this was breached, in 2018 he was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for two years.

The experience has led her to campaign for improvement of people’s attitudes to stalking, and the way it is dealt with by police and the courts.

She said: “By normalising stalking in this way we are risking taking ten steps back in terms of public perception of this all-consuming, truly devastating crime.

“Valentine’s Day is about celebrating all love and I want it made clear that stalking is never a display of love or affection.

“Stalkers have deep rooted and complex psychological problems and their display of fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviours takes over and destroys the lives of their victims.

“We have seen how this crime can fatally escalate and it should never be treated as some sort of joke.

“I hope that all retailers will now appropriately censor the products that they stock and remove any of these types of cards from their websites and shelves.”

Ms Bourne received messages of support on Twitter including one from Claudia Ortiz who co-founded the stalking support service, Veritas Justice.

She wrote: “Absolutely inappropriate to trivialise a crime that destroys lives and sometimes even takes lives!”

A Thortful spokesperson took to Twitter to apologise for any offence caused and said: “We can see that this card is upsetting and we have removed it from our catalogue with immediate effect, thank you for bringing this to our attention.”