A volunteer with Alzheimer’s Scotland who stalked three female colleagues and sent them a photo of Holocaust victims has been spared a jail sentence.
Murray Middleton, 48, was instead ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid community work, remain under social work supervision for two years and pay one of his victims £2,000 in compensation.
The offshore catering steward, of 51 Muirtown Street, Inverness, had sentence deferred for a background and mental health report until yesterday after admitting at an earlier hearing a charge of stalking Hayley Lyons, Arlene Bennett and Wendy Burgess.
Sheriff David Sutherland told the first offender: “You must follow the recommendations of your supervising officer and that may include psychiatric or psychological treatment.
“I am concerned with the effect this has had on the ladies but I will take into account the steps you have taken to deal with your health problems.”
Middleton’s agent, solicitor Willie Young, told the court his client was depressed at the time of the offence, having lost his job due to his mental health.
The lawyer said: “That is now on a much more stable footing and he has been passed fit to return to work.”
Inverness Sheriff Court was told by fiscal Roderick Urquhart that at the beginning of May 2014 his behaviour began to change after Ms Lyons, a day care organiser at Woodlands Centre who had been in hospital, neglected to thank him for a birthday card he sent her.
Mr Urquhart said: “He sent her a Facebook message telling her that when he sends a birthday card he expects to be thanked for it and that he no longer knew where he stood with her.
“She found this strange as she had never considered herself anything other than a colleague.
“She contacted her supervisor, Wendy Burgess, who explained to him that Hayley Lyons had been in hospital and so hadn’t been able to respond to his card.”
The court was told that Middleton apologised, said he was never going to return to the Woodlands Centre and went offshore.
But Mr Urquhart said Middleton began to message Ms Lyons, repeatedly claiming to have mental health problems and saying that, if he were to kill himself, it would be the fault of the Woodlands Centre.
Ms Lyons “unfriended” him on the social media site – but Middleton continued to send text and phone calls to her and colleague Arlene Bennett for several weeks.
Sheriff Sutherland was told he posted a photo on Facebook of emaciated bodies, apparently taken at the time of the liberation of Jews from the Nazis at the Belsen camp.
Mr Young explained: “He says the photographs reflected the segregation and persecution he felt at the charity and he apologises for it.”
