YouTuber ‘stalker destroyed Jeremy Vine’s well-being’
JEREMY Vine was among several BBC staff who suffered a relentless wave of online personal attacks from a former radio presenter, a court was told yesterday.
Alex Belfield subjected the Radio 2 host to a ‘constant bombardment’ after falsely accusing him of stealing £1,000 of licence fee payers’ money for a drinks party.
The harassing tweets and YouTube videos destroyed Vine’s sense of wellbeing and optimism, jurors were told.
Vine, 57, was left struggling to sleep, lost his appetite and was ‘constantly thinking what Mr Belfield’s next broadcast would be’, prosecutors said. He also received abusive and threatening messages from fans of the YouTuber.
Belfield, 42, is accused of stalking Vine between April 2020 and March last year, causing the broadcaster serious alarm or distress.
He faces the same charge in relation to seven other alleged victims, including five BBC employees. He denies all eight charges.
John McGuinness QC, prosecuting, told Nottingham Crown Court that although Belfield did not physically stalk his victims, some were left worried about the possibility of him turning up at their homes.
Belfield’s conduct was ‘more akin to internet trolling’, he added.
‘The alleged victims did not want to be contacted by Mr Belfield, they did not want to see him or hear him, or know what it was that he was saying about them. But he went ahead and did it anyway – to the extent that what he did caused them serious alarm or distress which affected their daily lives for the worse.’ Belfield, of Mapperley, Nottingham, started out as a mid-morning presenter on BBC Radio Leeds in 2010 on a one-year contract but began harassing three colleagues.
He held line manager Rozina Breen, fellow DJ Liz Green, whose show fol lowed his, and managing editor Helen Thomas responsible for ‘what he perceived to be his unfair treatment’, Mr McGuinness said.
He continued to harass them after being taken off air in 2011. Even nine years later he ‘continued to take great pleasure in vilifying’ the three women. In YouTube videos he put up on his website and linked to via Facebook and Twitter, he described them as ‘liars, cheats and c****’.
Belfield also stalked Radio Leeds presenter Stephanie Hirst between 2017 and 2021, BBC Radio Northampton host Bernard Spedding and videographer Ben Hewis – who had tweeted his disgust at one of the YouTube videos in 2019 – Mr McGuinness said.
He is alleged to have also harassed fellow YouTuber Philip Dehany, who defended Mr Hewis following a video in which Belfield included photos of his wife and young child.
Mr McGuinness said Belfield turned his attention to Vine in April 2020, after the broadcaster attended a drinks party in honour of the late radio executive John Myers.
Friends had raised funds for Mr Myers’ widow and Vine presented the cheque, the jury heard. The BBC also made its own donation of £1,000, which the court heard Vine had no knowledge of at the time.
But Belfield became ‘fixated’ on the money and his ‘baseless allegation that Jeremy Vine had somehow stolen it’, Mr McGuinness said.
In a series of broadcasts, Belfield accused Vine of stealing the money for a ‘p***-up’.
The court heard that Vine had been forced to take security advice and had ‘received threatening and abusive messages’ on Twitter as a result of Belfield’s campaign of online allegations, which lasted until the summer of 2020.
Belfield, who is defending himself, told police he was ‘not guilty of any of the allegations’.
He claimed he was the subject of a witch hunt by the BBC.
The trial, which is expected to last up to six weeks, continues.
‘Caused serious alarm and distress’