The mum of a Highland car crash victim has told a court that her estranged husband left “intimidating” letters to her and her daughters on the grave of their dead son.
David Foster, 58, is accused of stalking wife Heather and their grown-up daughters by sending letters and leaving menacing notes on his son Samuel’s grave and making malicious calls to police.
Heather Foster, who was giving evidence at Inverness Sheriff Court, said police turned up at her home in Lochend late at night after they received reports – allegedly from her ex – about an illegal lockdown party.
She said the incident, in March 2020, brought back painful memories of the night 18-year-old Samuel died just over a year earlier.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Emily Hood, Mrs Foster explained how police had turned up at her house during the Covid-19 restrictions acting on a tip-off about an alleged “illegal gathering”.
She said: “My youngest son was killed in a car accident and the police came to my door to tell me he had died. So for the police to turn up at my door like that I thought something had happened to my other son or my daughters.
“The last time the police came to my house at that hour was to tell me Samuel was dead.”
A police witness later confirmed to the court that the call had come from Foster’s number.
Mrs Foster told the court that her estranged husband had also been sending letters to her and her grown-up children, including some telling them to “believe in karma”.
She said she found the letters to be “intimidating” and so reported him to police.
Foster was advised by police not to contact her directly – at which point she claimed Foster began leaving letters at his late son’s grave in Inverness’ Kilvean Cemetery.
“Instead of doing letters to the house he started putting letters to the cemetery, on my son’s grave,” she said.
Mrs Foster said the letters – some addressed to Samuel – detailed how “he was going to sell the croft from beneath me”.
The depute fiscal asked her who she believed the letters were aimed at.
“It is us, it is me 100%,” she replied. “Why would you put something like that on a grave? He is dead. He can’t read it. It was made for me to see and the girls.”
One of the handwritten letters appeared to warn Ms Foster that a camera was watching them at the graveside.
Mrs Foster was cross-examined by Foster’s solicitor Kevin Hughes, who said that items left by Foster had previously been taken from the graveside by another family member and smashed.
He asked if those circumstances would perhaps explain her estranged husband’s desire to make people think they were being surveilled at the graveside.
She replied: “I would feel very intimidated if there were cameras watching me at the cemetery.”
Accused denies all the charges
She also said she did not know who was responsible for an assault on her Foster – an incident that his solicitor suggested may have led to him trying to communicate the details of his will in the letters.
Samatha Wilson, one of the Fosters’ daughters, told the court of her own distress at receiving a hand-delivered letter from her father.
She said her brother’s death was “the worst thing that ever happened to any of us in the family. He (Foster) knew that.”
On the day she arrived home from hospital with her newborn son she received a letter, which spoke about Samuel.
She said she believed her actions up until that point had made it clear she did not want any contact with her father.
David Foster denies a single charge of engaging in a course of conduct between January 1 2020 and June 20 2020 that caused his wife and grown-up daughters fear or alarm by repeatedly sending them letters, leaving menacing notes on his son’s grave, threatening to evict them and making malicious calls to police regarding them.
The trial, before Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald, was adjourned to continue next month.
