A ‘creepy’ stalker has been convicted of subjecting a female neighbour to a long-running campaign of intimidation on a rural Angus estate.
Robert Alexander’s bizarre behaviour over more than 20 months between 2013 and 2014 included staring directly into a dinner party being hosted by Sandra and Paul Bancroft at their house next door to him on the Panmure estate, near Carnoustie.
Alexander caused Mrs Bancroft such anxiety that she resorted to buying a baseball cap with a hidden camera in it to record his antics after a planning dispute led to the complete breakdown of relations between the neighbours.
The 65-year old former clerk of works at Dundee and St Andrews universities and Ninewells Hospital also drove slowly past Mrs Bancroft’s home, and on another occasion shocked his victim and a visiting neighbour by parking outside and “glaring” at Mrs Bancroft through the living room window.
Following a day-long trial at Forfar, Alexander was found guilty of the statutory stalking offence by Sheriff Kevin Veal and ordered to be of good behaviour until next August.
The sheriff deemed there little likelihood of any repetition because Alexander and his wife had now moved out of their Starforth Bothy home.
Following the verdict, the Bancrofts said they were relieved and keen to put “such a lengthy period of constant harassment” behind them.
Alexander had denied engaging in a course of conduct between January 1 2013 and September 20 2014 in breach of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Scotland Act, including peering through Mrs Bancroft’s living room window, following her and parking outside her home.
In evidence, Mrs Bancroft told the court: “He would sit and stare at my window, look for me, leer at me. He just constantly harassed me.”
By the summer of 2014 she bought the baseball cap with the camera in it to record incidents and told the court of an occasion when Alexander was near her house, pointing a camera at her and smirking.
“I was freaked out,” Mrs Bancroft told the court. “I think Mr Alexander likes to think he’s intimidating me, has got control and he’s powerful.”
She said she kept a journal in which she had written that it felt as if the accused “fills the house – it’s just horrible.”
Mr Bancroft, in evidence, said he had become “upset, agitated and frustrated” that his wife had been forced to put up with such behaviour over an extended period.
Referring to the dinner party incident in 2014 when they were dining with relatives and Alexander peered in the kitchen window, he said: “It was bizarre behaviour really.
“The sad thing is that it didn’t totally surprise me. I just thought, what an idiot, what a fool.”
Alexander, in his defence evidence, said he had made several complaints to the police about Mrs Bancroft and told the court a planning dispute between the parties had been “a great issue”.
“We were going to end up leaving that property feet first and these people made it impossible to live there,” said Alexander.
Finding the accused guilty, Sheriff Veal said: “It is quite clear from the outset that the parties are not members of the mutual admiration society.
“The incidents, although they may seem trivial taken in isolation, more than stand up the statutory interpretation and I have no doubt that this charge has been properly made out.
“There is also no doubt that the kernel of this matter has been reduced considerably because he has moved from the location and I do not see their being any chance of a repetition of this behaviour.”
Alexander, of West Smieton Street, Carnoustie was placed on a good behaviour order until August 24 next year.
