'The stuff of nightmares': Shelagh Fogarty left speechless at stalker victim's story
25 March 2021, 17:34
Shelagh Fogarty was left speechless after a victim of stalking shared her experience, branding it "the stuff of nightmares."
Helen in Cleveden told her story after the Suzy Lamplugh Trust revealed there has been a "substantial rise" in cyber-stalking during lockdown, with victims telling the charity they feel like "sitting ducks."
The charity has said the number of calls to its National Stalking Helpline have risen by 20,000 since March 2020.
Helen told Shelagh: "I had a stalker in the days when everything was done by postal mail.
"And therefore I would have cards [and] letters sent to my place of work saying 'you look so lovely at your desk today', 'that yellow blouse looks really pretty' and so on."
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She continued: "That escalated into old fashioned tape cassettes being posted to my place of work, saying what this person is going to do me."
Helen explained that the Criminal Investigation Department looked into her case and didn't manage to find her stalker.
She then moved 150 miles away from the place she was living after two years of being stalked, sharing the impact this trauma had upon her: "I still didn't exactly feel that my life was ever going to be normal again."
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"And as a result of checking my windows two or three times a night and various quite irrational actions, I did go to my doctor and my doctor referred me to a psychiatrist."
She then revealed: "The psychiatrist then replicated the actions of the stalker to get me to keep on seeing him."
Helen went on to say that the psychiatrist would turn up at her place of work and would make "hang up phone calls" to her after she told him it drove her "bonkers".
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She added: "The end of that story Shelagh is that he got struck off by the [General Medical Council] because it transpired that it wasn't only me.
"There were two other ladies that were telling him all their worst fears and then he was using that as a weapon against them."
"That is the stuff of nightmares," Shelagh told Helen after hearing the story, in disbelief that she had suffered two stalkers, one being a medical professional.
If you are affected by any of these issues, you can contact the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on 0808 802 0300.
