Scotland’s nastiest neighbour
Accused fined £2,000 after he’s found guilty of 6-year stalking campaign, which mother says ‘drove her to suffer a stroke’
THE husband of a woman terrorised by their neighbour wept in court yesterday as her tormentor was found guilty of conducting a six-year stalking campaign.
Ernst Robberts hounded his neighbour Gail Nichol-Andrews at her rural cottage.
The estate owner installed a ‘barrage’ of CCTV to watch her come and go and loitered outside her home near Invergordon, Ross-shire.
He regularly looked into the property, causing the social care manager years of misery between 2010 and 2016.
Mrs Nichol-Andrews, 57, even blames the ordeal for a mild stroke she suffered in 2015.
Yesterday Robberts, a land manager, was found guilty of engaging in a course of conduct which caused fear or alarm to Mrs NicholAndrews on repeated occasions.
Her husband Hugh Nicol broke down as the verdict was delivered and later said he thought Robberts should have been jailed.
Defence solicitor Alison Foggo described Mrs Nichol-Andrew’s evidence as ‘disingenuous’ and said the dispute was a simple disagreement over access rights.
But at Tain Sheriff Court Sheriff Janys Scott, QC, dismissed the claims and fined Robberts £2,000.
Addressing Mrs Nichol-Andrew’s evidence, which was interspersed with panic attacks, she said: ‘She came across as acutely distressed. My impression was that she was only just able to hold herself together to give evidence.
‘I was very unimpressed by Mr Robberts. I found him preoccupied by issue of his rights no matter the effect of his actions on anyone else.’
Sheriff Scott said evidence from Robberts’s sister Mieke Horsburgh was credible. Mrs Horsburgh, 51, overheard him boasting that he harassed Mrs NicholAndrews ‘when there’s no one around’ and ‘she goes mental’.
Sheriff Scott said ‘the comment indicates Mr Robberts’s state of mind’ and outlined how he had intended for his actions to distress his victim.
Robberts, 50, who also part-owns a holiday cottage, had claimed the Nichol-Andrews family organised a conspiracy against him and pulled his sister into it, saying her claims were fabricated.
Sheriff Scott further condemned the ‘barrage’ of CCTV he erected on the only entrance and exit to her home.
Miss Foggo had claimed CCTV was a natural ‘part of our daily lives’ as ‘every high street is covered in CCTV nowadays’.
The sheriff said: ‘It is patent Mrs Nichol-Andrews was distressed by the treatment she suffered.’ But she said she could not make a finding on the link between Robberts’s behaviour and Mrs Nichol-Andrew’s stroke.
Speaking after the verdict Mrs Nichol-Andrews said: ‘I’m thrilled he’s been found guilty. I’m disappointed it’s just the £2,000 fine.
‘The oppressiveness of it on a day to day basis was beyond belief. He was very, very clever about it. You actually think you’re going a little bit mad yourself.’
Mr Nichol, a postman, had told the court he felt powerless to help his wife, adding: ‘I thought I was going to lose her at one point.’
Outside court the 66-year-old said he was disappointed at the fine, saying the family had hoped for a custodial sentence.
He added: ‘I’m not happy. It’s not even a month’s rent – they’ll make that up in half a week’s rent with the properties they let.’
He also claimed Robberts was motivated by a desire to buy their small home, adding: ‘I’ve worked my whole life for that little place and they want it for nothing.’
Another sister of Robberts, Hetty Morrison, said outside court that she had been forced to move from a house next door to him as a result of his behaviour.
The 48-year-old added: ‘He’s been a narcissist from day one.’
‘You think you’re going mad’