Stalker Avoids Jail After Car Park Confrontation
A stalker who followed his victim around a Tesco store then later confronted her in the store's car park and threatened to kill her partner has avoided a jail term.
A stalker who followed his victim around a Tesco store then later confronted her in the store's car park and threatened to kill her partner has avoided a jail term.
Mark Dowie bombarded his ex, Elaine Pearson, with hundreds of text messages and wrote her letters up to 80 pages long during his three-and-a-half month campaign of harassment.
The couple had broken up after 26 years in March last year.
But Dowie couldn't handle the break up - and began deluging Miss Pearson with messages begging her to come back, even after she told him to leave her alone.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court the tensions had escalated to such an extent that a confrontation erupted in the car park of Dundee's Tesco Riverside store.
During that Dowie made derogatory sexual remarks - before threatening to kill her new partner, Kmiec Kryzstof, who was in the car.
Miss Robertson said: "In one of the messages the accused told her she would regret not coming back to him which she regarded as a threat.
"She feared he might come to her address or harm himself.
"The number of messages made her feel threatened and intimidated and she was concerned to what he might do.
"On one date in April she was driving in Tayport when she saw the accused's car parked, which concerned her as he had no reason to be there.
"He then emerged from a lane nearby and waved at her to slow down but she drove on.
"On another occasion she was with her daughter in Tesco in Dundee Riverside.
"He approached them and was repeatedly trying to engage them asking her to take him back.
"He followed them around the store for 20 to 25 minutes.
"He later returned and followed them again and was repeatedly told to leave.
"He was described as desperate and the complainer said she felt he was watching her all the time.
"The accused later started writing letters to the complainer.
"The first was seven pages long.
"Another was later found in her door that was 80 pages long."
Dowie, 45, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to charges of stalking and behaving in a threatening and abusive manner.
The offences took place at addresses in Tayport, Fife, and at Tesco, Riverside Drive, Dundee, between March 21 and July 6 this year.
Peter Mullen, defending, said Dowie refuted the suggestion he had gone to Tesco with the intent of starting a confrontation.
Sheriff George Way imposed a community payback order with two years supervision and a conduct requirement not to approach or contact the complainers in the case.
A non-harassment order preventing Dowie from contacting them for five years was also imposed.