Don’t go near her!
Stalker who left BBC’s One Show presenter terrified is given a restraining order
AN OBSESSED fan who bombarded BBC presenter Alex Jones with declarations of love was yesterday handed a restraining order.
Shane Goldsmith sent the host of The One Show a string of public messages on Twitter telling her he loved her.
In a 17-month harassment campaign, the 44-year- old stalker also waited at the BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London in the hope of seeing her.
Miss Jones, 38, was left ‘ nervous, anxious and vulnerable’ by Goldsmith’s behaviour.
She was so distressed about the harassment that she asked to give evidence from behind a screen at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
Miss Jones had four witnesses ready to give evidence on her behalf, including a ‘ close protection officer’, who was said to have seen Goldsmith ‘staring’ at the glamorous TV presenter and telling her ‘I love you’.
But the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence against him on a charge of harassment on condition he accepted a restraining order – so Miss Jones left the building without giving evidence.
Under the order, Goldsmith is
‘Anxious and vulnerable’
banned from contacting Miss Jones and from visiting Broadcasting House. He is also barred from contacting her husband, Charlie Thomson, and her parents Alun and Mary Jones.
The harassment of the Welsh presenter began with a message part of which read ‘...tune in at 7 to see more of those fantastic £T***’.
In another he offered to meet for breakfast at the Bear and Staff pub, in Leicester Square.
He wrote: ‘@MissAlexjones would you like to join me for a fryup breakfast @bearstreet10??? darling lovely lady that you are?’
Goldsmith was also accused of expressing his love for Miss Jones during a recording of one of her shows at Broadcasting House and verbally abusing her colleagues.
Miss Jones replaced Christine Bleakley on The One Show in 2010 and has competed in Strictly Come Dancing. She has presented Let’s Dance for Comic Relief and the BBC’s gymnastics competition series Tumble.
Last month Miss Jones, from Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, married Mr Thomson, an insurance broker from New Zealand, at Cardiff Castle. The rights to the wedding were sold to a magazine for a reported six-figure sum.
In court yesterday Goldsmith, who is being treated at Cygnet Hospital, a mental health hospital, in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was formally cleared of a single charge of harassment. He had denied the charge.
Senior District Judge Howard Riddle said Goldsmith ‘was likely to pursue a course of conduct that would lead to harassment’ if the restraining order was not imposed.
Nicola Flint, for the prosecution, said Miss Jones was ‘happy with this course of action’.
Goldsmith, who appeared in court wearing a green jumper, a white shirt and a tie with his receding hair neatly trimmed, bowed his head as the prosecution read the restraining order.
At an earlier hearing, he had appeared wearing a number of lanyards including one with the BBC logo on it. He had said: ‘I’m homeless, I used to sleep at the church outside the One Show studios.’