Stalker sent funeral staff to visit victim

A STALKER relentlessly contacted a terrified woman and sent undertakers to her door to collect her dead body - when she was still alive.

James Leslie, 43, ignored Debra Reid’s pleas to stop contacting her after a short relationship didn’t work out.

He bombarded the 44-year-old with phone calls, cards and flowers – refusing to leave her alone despite her repeated requests.

Leslie claimed he had terminal cancer in a desperate bid to maintain contact and told her he only had weeks to live.

But after he posed as her teenage son to order undertakers pick up her remains and her children answered the door to the private ambulance, she reported Leslie to cops.

In court, infatuated Leslie accepted his guilt but denied phoning the undertakers and sending them to her door.

After a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Leslie, from Strathblane was unanimously convicted of stalking his victim between April 1 and May 12, last year, and sending funeral directors to her door, causing distress to her family.

Leslie, who has a previous conviction for stalking from 2013, contacted Debra, from Bishopbriggs, on Facebook in February, last year.

The pair knew each other from school and met for coffees and walks and tried at a relationship.

After they broke up, Debra asked Leslie – who would phone her multiple times a day – to back off.

He would send messages if she didn’t pick up his calls saying he would come over to “make sure she was alright” and this scared her.

Phone records showed Leslie called Debra around 150 times over a seven-week period. She eventually changed her number

Dad-of-one Leslie said he was “absolutely disgusted” at his behaviour – but denied being the person who made the phone call to funeral directors.

Sheriff Martin Jones QC deferred sentence until next month and told Leslie a prison sentence is “likely”.