A professional gardener was today convicted of stalking a former Aberdeen TV presenter as magistrates ruled he had become “infatuated” with her when she moved in next door.
Isla Traquair suffered nightmares and panic attacks due to the attention of Jonathan Barrett, who stared into her bedroom window and “chainsawed” a bush in her garden.
The ex-STV and Channel 5 news presenter said Barrett “terrorised” her for seven months between March and September 2021 after she moved into her idyllic 1700s country cottage, on the edge of the Cotswolds.
Ms Traquair, 42, became terrified of “weird” Barrett, who shocked her soon after she arrived when he climbed over her garden wall and then entered her house to offer her a sandwich.
The journalist became so fearful of the 53-year-old she spent thousands of pounds fortifying her home with fences and security cameras before eventually fleeing.
She has not returned to her home in the small Wiltshire town of Corsham, where scenes for hit BBC drama Poldark were filmed in the high street, in almost a year.
Today at Salisbury Magistrates Court, Barrett shook his head as he was convicted of stalking Ms Traquair and was banned from peering into her property.
Magistrate Mina Searles said: “We do find you guilty. We find that you pursued a course of conduct that caused alarm and distress.
“We found Ms Traquair to be a credible witness … In terms of your evidence, we found inconsistencies which demonstrated an obsession and infatuation with [Ms Traquair] over a fairly significant period.
“Regarding the sandwich incident, you talked about Ms Traquair’s energies ‘flagging’ by the end of the day.
“The only conclusion we can draw from this is that you were obsessed and you were watching her.
“On the standing and staring into her property over quite a lot of different times, including when the camera was installed … we find this was loitering and harassment.”
Barrett will be sentenced later this month but was handed an immediate restraining order to not contact Ms Traquair or enter or look into her property for one year.
Mrs Searles, who was chair of a two magistrate bench, added: “I can see you are shaking your head, but you must adhere to that. Any breach of a restraining order is very serious, I must warn you.”
‘It breaks my heart I can’t live in my own home’
Alicia Doble, prosecuting, previously told the three-day trial: “(Ms Traquair) is a journalist, a relatively well-known journalist, and it seems when she moved in Mr Barrett took an interest in her and in her life.
“He admits to looking her up when she moved in and seemed to know facts about her she didn’t tell him.
“Over the coming months he became obsessed with her. He would loiter outside her house, look through windows, stand on her wall and look into her conservatory.”
Ms Traquair, originally from Aberdeen, recently worked on the Oprah Winfrey Network in the United States and released a true-crime podcast ‘The Storyteller: Violent Delights’.
“There were periods of time I moved away and hoped the police would have another word with him.
“I have had nightmares, it’s affected my relationships… When I was in the house I barely went out at all because I was scared I would see him.
“I have panic attacks, I would wake in the middle of the night. Even if I saw a white van, because that’s what he drives, that would set me off.
“I was scared of him, I wanted to avoid him at all costs, his behaviour was frightening to me.
“I left my home and I honestly just tried to bury all this. It breaks my heart I can’t live in my own home.”
Barrett denied stalking or harassing his neighbour, even claiming she had become “fixated” on him.
He told the court his interest in her was not abnormal and he had not been trying to see into her home.
He claimed she had become “disturbed” from working on her true crime podcast, something he admitted knowing about her because he researched her life on Wikipedia.
“I know she was telling true crime murder stories and I think seeking out stories that send chills down people’s spines has become a fixation for her that she lives on, that fear.”
Barrett, who lives in a £380,000 one-bed semi-detached home next to Ms Traquair’s in the village of Corsham, was convicted of one charge of stalking.
Barrett will be sentenced at Salisbury Magistrates Court on August 18.
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