A terrified woman disguised herself with a wig and glasses in a desperate attempt to avoid being hounded by the obsessive husband she fled from.
Ann Marie Dickie and Iain Coull had been together for about 10 years when they split last summer and he began making her life a misery by constantly turning up at her home and work.
Yesterday, Elgin Sheriff Court heard that the Buckie plumber resorted to increasingly menacing behaviour as he kept watch over his estranged wife’s every move.
Coull admitted carrying out a course of conduct which caused his victim “fear and alarm”, including “following her in her vehicle and monitoring her movements”.
The 53-year-old, of Wallace Avenue in Buckie, was spared a prison sentence but fined £1,350 and ordered to pay Ms Dickie £1,000 in compensation.
Fiscal Kevin Corrins explained that Ms Dickie had endured “periods of controlling, jealous behaviour” throughout the couple’s relationship.
Mr Corrins added: “On one occasion, Ms Dickie stayed late at work and saw her husband waiting for her in the car park after finishing.
“An argument ensued and Coull accused her of sleeping with her employer.”
The court heard that Ms Dickie later told police that she “felt on edge all the time, as she was constantly being accused of sleeping with other people”.
Mr Corrins said Coull refused to leave the house on the night before their wedding, in November 2016, until 4am as he “believed she would have someone else in the house”.
It also emerged that the accused regularly left notes around their home “putting his wife down and saying he was going to leave”.
Mr Corrins said: “Last August she decided enough was enough and moved out.”
But Coull quickly spread rumours about Ms Dickie being “shacked up” with another man when she moved out and began following her.
The fiscal added: “She recalls seeing the accused moving or parked around her home every day and feeling it was guaranteed she would run into him every time she went out.
“She said he would drive past ‘slowly staring’.
“She even went out in disguise with hats, glasses and a wig in the hopes she would go unrecognised.”
Coull even asked Ms Dickie’s neighbour at her new St Andrew’s Court flat to “monitor noises and visitors” and report back to him.
And he admitted “repeatedly” phoning her and sending unwanted messages on social media, as well as forcing entry to Ms Dickie’s flat, “seizing her” and refusing to leave.
At one point, when Ms Dickie took a trip to Aberdeen with a friend of her mother’s, Coull attended at that woman’s property and told her husband that Ms Dickie was “a bad person to be around”.
Mr Corrins explained that the harassed woman eventually reported Coull to the police in early November, telling officers she was “aware of him watching her as she came and went from the flat”.
But Coull continued pursuing her in December, at one point tailing her along the A98 road between Buckie and Arradoul.
Defence agent, Matthew O’Neill, said his client was struggling to keep his business afloat at the time and grieving the death of his brother.
Mr O’Neill said: “He had a number of difficulties that contributed to his behaviour. He was unable to deal with what was happening.”
