ALL STALK AND NO ACTION
Crown admit they blundered by striking deal in case against Philip Hoad.. FIVE years after vowing stalker plea bargains would stop
THE Crown Office struck a plea bargain with a stalker – despite a promise not to.
Solicitor General Alison Di Rollo admitted twisted Philip Hoad should
have felt the full force of the law. Instead, Hoad, who terrorised his local community for 11 years, was convicted of a single charge of breach of the peace.
Stephanie Waterston, whose life was made a misery by Hoad, is furious.
She said: “For 11 years, I’ve had to put up with being screamed at, intimidated and threatened by him. He makes sexual and other degrading gestures and swears at me on a near daily basis.
“Stalking is a horrible crime that neither the police nor the courts nor the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are taking seriously.”
In November 2013, following a campaign by the Daily Record, the Crown Office promised they would no longer strike plea bargain deals with alleged stalkers.
Di Rollo – Scotland’s second most senior law officer – admitted that prosecutors in Wick had been wrong to accept such a deal in Hoad’s case.
In a letter to MSP John Finnie, the Solicitor General wrote: “Whilst the procurator fiscal was acting in good faith when making the decision to accept a plea to breach of the peace in the above terms, I can advise that this plea should not have been accepted.
“My assessment is that the accused’s conduct was properly described as stalking and that any plea accepted by the Crown should therefore have included reference to the statutory offence of stalking.”
Hoad, who is in his 50s, faced five charges of stalking Stephanie and her neighbours, in Lybster, Caithness.
The former lorry driver admitted the single charge of breach of the peace.
Stephanie was furious at the decision by local procurator fiscal Fraser Matheson and complained to the Crown Office.
When they refused to comment, she approached local MSP Finnie.
Stephanie lives at the end of a private road, about a quarter of a mile from Hoad’s house. She has to pass his house when she leaves home.
The 39-year-old victim said: “He took to doing nightly walks up this dead end private road where he has no interests, no friends or family and would lurk about, spy and loiter on my property and use it as an opportunity to noise up anyone he saw there.
“He also began matching my routines in order to run into me in other places in Lybster, as well as in Wick, in order to find an opportunity to stalk and intimidate me. He did the same thing to other neighbours, mostly women.”
Stephanie said that tight bail conditions were imposed by a sheriff on Hoad after the plea deal but the father of two continues to harass her and her neighbours.
She added: “It took years to get the police interested in doing anything about this man. He has not stopped harassing me, despite being on bail. “He noised me up in the steps of the courthouse as well as outside in the car park but police refused to do anything, despite it being on camera and him on very strict bail conditions.
“He also noised me up a couple of days later, witnessed by a police officer who put his hand up in front of his face and told him to knock it off. “It is quite sick.” Stephanie spent months collecting evidence of Hoad’s behaviour, including video clips of him making sexual gestures towards her and her young daughter and performing “monkey dances” whenever she drove past.
She handed over the dossier to police who built a case under Section 39(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 that covers stalking.
Hoad faced five charges under the act and a further three for breach of the peace. He initially pleaded not guilty and the case was set to go to trial late last year.
But Stephanie was stunned to hear that a plea deal had been reached last October.
She added: “All of a sudden, I was told the trial was off as a plea deal was made and all charges dropped.
“I straight away told the court that I had already read about the Record’s campaign and there is no longer plea deals in stalking cases, so how can this be? “They refused to talk to me about it. I phoned the Crown Office and
He began matching my routine in order to run into me. He did the same to other neighbours
Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) who refused to talk to me about it.
“Then, I went to my MSP and he discussed the matter with the COPFS on my behalf.”
Di Rollo explained to Finnie how the plea bargain came about.
She said: “At a notional diet on October 25, 2017, a plea of guilty to an amended breach of the peace charge was accepted by the procurator fiscal and pleas of not guilty were accepted in respect of the remaining charges on the complaint.” Di Rollo said the charge was amended to include the names of all of the complainers who featured within the eight charges and “to expand the dates of the libel to reflect the period over which the conduct of the accused persisted.”
Di Rollo added: “Procurator fiscals are aware of the seriousness of stalking and the importance of not discounting cases or charges where sufficient evidence exists unless there are exceptional reasons for doing so. In this particular case, the error of judgment has been raised with the relevant procurator fiscal.”
Hoad is due to be sentenced for breach of the peace in August.
Another victim, Tina Smith, who has had a number of frightening run-ins with Hoad, also complained to the local procurator fiscal about the plea bargain.
In a letter, the 68-year-old asked them: “Please help me to comprehend how one offence of breach of the peace can equate to one offence of breach of the peace and six offences of stalking, and how sentencing on this one offence laid can be on the same scale as six offences of stalking.”
Tina added: “I feel that Mr Hoad has played the system yet again and won. The police’s strong case of stalking has been watered down to ensure a guilty plea, thereby ensuring that the victims do not get the opportunity to state their case and give evidence.”
When the Record approached Hoad, he said: “I’ve got no comment. Nothing should go in the paper about me. If there is, I’ll be taking it up with my solicitor.”
STEPHANIE