Suspended sentence for '˜Jekyll and Hyde' stalker

Graham Steed had even hired a private investigator to follow the woman.

He had become ‘infatuated’ with the mother of a child he had been employed to help with her GCSEs.

Steed repeatedly visited the shop where the woman worked in Bishop’s Waltham and left ‘deeply strange’ laminated notes for her before sending letters to her and her husband.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Steed, 68, then employed a private investigator to take photographs of his victim, including shots of her with a man she was having an affair with.

The photographs were sent to her husband and to the man’s wife, and letters of complaint were sent to their employers, leading to the man losing his job.

Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, said Steed had arranged for a camera to be placed in the woman’s garden.

Judge Jane Miller QC described him as an ‘intimacy-seeking stalker’ and told him his letters and actions ‘showed obsessive and weird behaviour. She added: ‘You represent a high risk of stalking to women.’

Steed, of Holyborne Road, Romsey, pleaded guilty to stalking and was sentenced to a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to attend a stalking clinic, carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and was issued with a restraining order.

The court heard the victim, who has since split from her husband, lived in fear of Steed’s unwanted attention and had difficulties sleeping.

She told police: ‘I felt physically sick by his presence. I am absolutely terrified by Mr Steed, I can’t sleep, he is a predator. He strikes me as a Jekyll and Hyde character projecting the front of an elderly and kind gentleman while actually he is a lonely and controlling man.’

Adrienne Knight, defending, said: ‘He is sorry for what happened and ashamed of himself. He is a really charming, caring man when he is not infatuated by someone.’