I was stalked by ‘Jimmy Savile of trolling’, sobbing Vine tells court
Radio 2 star says abuse left him numb with fear
JEREMY Vine wept in court yesterday as he gave evidence against an alleged stalker he branded as the ‘Jimmy Savile of trolling’.
The Radio 2 and Channel 5 pre-senter, 57, said watching Alex Belf-ield’s YouTube videos was like ‘swimming in sewage’ and insisted the harassment he suffered left him ‘numb with fear’.
Prosecutors claim former BBC Radio Leeds presenter Belfield, 42, who has 372,000 subscribers on YouTube, sub-jected Mr Vine to an ‘avalanche of hatred’ which included a ‘wave of per-sonal and unpleasant attacks’ on the platform, Twitter and Facebook over an 11-month period.
He is also said to have encouraged followers to make hoax calls to Mr Vine’s daily Channel 5 chat show and Radio 2 lunchtime programme.
It is alleged he accused Mr Vine of appointing his ‘ten-year-old daughter’ as a director of one of his companies as a means of dodging taxes and tried to obtain private phone numbers for his family members.
Belfield, off Mapperley, nottingham, denies stalking Mr Vine and seven other people – including five who work at the BBC – claiming he is the subject of a ‘witch hunt’.
Eggheads quiz show host Vine broke down at nottingham Crown Court as he said Belfield falsely accused him of ‘stealing’ £1,000 of licence fee payers’ money to put towards a memorial for radio executive John Myers, 60.
He told jurors how that ‘complete lie’ led to one troll targeting an online tribute he posted to his father, who died of Parkinson’s disease. He said: ‘His comment was “What would your father have said if he knew his son was a thieving toe rag?” I couldn’t handle it. I went to the police and said I couldn’t handle it any more.’
He said received an ‘avalanche of hatred’ from other internet users because of Belfield’s videos and tweets, and had to put cameras in his home because he feared one of the YouTu-ber’s ‘disciples’ may launch a knife or acid attack on him or his family. The court heard father- of-two Mr Vine even put up a picture of Belfield in his hallway and warned his 13-year- old daughter to be on her guard while on the street – causing the child to burst into tears.
He recalled: ‘I saw her shrink. It was a year before she had the confidence to leave the house again. She is his victim as well and he does not even know her name.’ Mr Vine glared at Belfield, from the witness box as he described him as a ‘nasty, nasty man’ whose actions were ‘crazy and wicked’. He compared his tormentor to dis-graced former DJ Jimmy Savile, insist-ing: ‘We are dealing with serious crimi-nality here. This is not a regular troll. This is the Jimmy Savile of trolling. Every reference to him makes my flesh creep. All he does is lie.
‘I had a physical stalker who followed me. That was a picnic compared to this guy.’ Mr Vine added: ‘There’s a good deal of stalking in broadcasting, but none of my friends in the industry has seen anything like this. This is Olympic-level stalking.’ He told how he had not heard of Belfield until April 2020 when an acquaintance sent him a link to a video on YouTube that fea-tured a ‘rant’ about him.
Mr Vine said that in hindsight he wished he had not viewed it, adding: ‘Watching this man is like swimming in sewage.’ Jurors have been told a ‘con-stant bombardment’ of videos, tweets and messages then followed, with Belf-ield becoming increasingly abusive.
The court heard that at one point Belfield made 124 references to Mr Vine online in a fortnight.
Describing the impact of the alleged stalking, Mr Vine said it left him ‘shred-ded’, anxious and unable to sleep or eat for a period of time. He added: ‘I had 5,000 to 10,000 hateful personal tweets as a direct result of Belfield.
‘It felt like I had a fish hook in my face and my flesh was being torn and the only way to avoid further pain was to stay completely still.
‘I was brought so low. I just thought “There’s no point broadcasting if the effect is that I’ve got this’’.’
Mr Vine said that the stream of abuse only ended when police started inves-tigating Belfield and his bail condi-tions meant he could no longer pro-duce videos about him.
The broadcaster said he also wanted to correct Belfield’s many references to his £700,000 BBC salary, saying it was ‘less than half that’.
He added that his family now referred to time as ‘BB – Before Belfield’.
Belfield, who is representing himself, later cross-examined Mr Vine.
Asked why he had described him as the ‘Jimmy Savile of trolling’, Mr Vine replied: ‘Because that is what you are. I think you are a very serious criminal. You operate by proxy. You drive hatred that causes others to send messages.’
He added that he ‘feared’ Belfield and ‘didn’t want to be’ cross- exam-ined by him. However, he agreed to do so in order to ‘help things along’ and prevent delays after a barrister appointed to represent Belfield and question prosecution witnesses fell ill with Covid. The trial continues.
‘Constant bombardment’