Being stalked by my neighbour broke me in ways I didn’t even know I could be broken
It began with him being a little bit creepy – then escalated until Scots newsreader Isla’s hair fell out and she was forced to flee her cottage for America
We’d have our meals in the conservatory and Jon would be on the other side of the glass’.
Still in his garden? ‘Yes, but just standing there, staring.’
Her friend helped her install bamboo screening and ‘out of courtesy, I texted Sonja to let her know’. Sonja asked her to tell Barrett directly.
‘We passed him driving home, after I’d texted him, his face a fury. When we got back home, a hedge that runs the width of my garden had been butchered. It wasn’t a neighbourly act. It looked as if it had been done in anger.’
Then Isla had another conversation with Sonja, now overtly saying Barrett was spying on her ‘and scaring me’. ‘She said he liked to stare, but it was “not what you think”. I said I wasn’t suggesting a motivation, sexual or otherwise.
‘She said he was angry because I wasn’t “including him”.
‘The next day he jumped up on the dividing wall and “barked at me”. My friend was present. He urged me to call the police.’
Isla was told an officer would contact her. A few days later she felt Barrett was following her in his car, and she called the police again.
On June 10, two female officers visited. ‘They were helpful, telling me to photograph or video what I could.’ They recommended continuing with a stalking diary Isla had already started and said two Taser-trained officers would talk to Barrett, warning him he risked arrest, and to inform him a fence and cameras were being installed.
What happened next was unacceptable, she says.
She had gone to stay with a friend on the day Barrett was supposed to have his visit from the police, and when she queried if it had happened, a male officer emailed, saying: ‘Sorry Isla. I am not a go-between.’
‘I couldn’t believe it. He wanted me to tell Jon about the fence myself. After I’d been told to steer clear.’ She says she later received an apology from a senior officer, but it wasn’t the only issue with the police. She also queried their compiling of her statement, pointing out that it contained errors.
‘They said “it doesn’t matter”. It did matter. When this all came to court, the prosecuting barrister was unhappy with what she’d been handed.’
By now, Isla was staying regularly with friends.
‘But every time I returned, things escalated. I heard what sounded like stones being thrown at my bedroom more than once. I recorded it. There was a strong smell of urine at my front door, but how do you record that, and what does it prove anyway?’
From June onwards, Isla documented dozens more incidents, including a video of Barrett triggering motion sensors by putting a collapsed clothes horse against her fence — while naked.
‘I happened to be on the phone to a police sergeant at the time,’ she recalls. ‘At first I thought it was a ladder.’
This prompted police to arrest him on July 16. Bail conditions included not approaching her, or crossing onto her property.
Three days later, he was caught on camera outside Isla’s bedroom window, behind a bush in her garden, then crossing back towards his house while taking photos.
She reported this, and other incidents, but no action was taken.
Eventually she’d had enough. ‘I thought there was no point phoning the police again so I called friends and cried myself to sleep on their sofa. I’ve not lived there since.’
In October, Barrett was charged with stalking. ‘I went to stay with my brother in the U.S. I just wanted to get far away.’ She was horrified, though, to learn that because she was no longer in the country, the CPS wanted to drop the case.
‘I had to write to the Chief Constable over that. I was outraged. As if me being out of the way fixed the problem. I was out of the country because I was too afraid to be in my house!
‘In court, the defence even tried to claim I was the one harassing him. I was challenged about whether I should have been recording him. But if I hadn’t, we would not be in court.’
Although the law was changed in 2020 to give stalking victims more protection, she argues that a loophole is being exploited.
‘At one point the police lawyer applied for a Stalking Protection Order but I was warned if I gave evidence in court to get it, it would be used by the defence to deliberately scupper the criminal case. That is astonishing.’
It’s easy to forget Isla has ‘won’ here. Barrett will be sentenced later this month but was handed an immediate restraining order, banning him from contacting Isla or looking into her property for one year. She was horrified, though, to find someone bearing his name had liked one of her comments on Instagram, after the verdict.
A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said they are investigating an alleged breach of the restraining order, so could not comment further.
‘However, we want the public to be reassured that we take all reports of stalking and harassment incredibly seriously and we would always encourage victims to come forward,’ he added.
Isla wasn’t in court to see a guilty verdict returned — and was not even aware the verdict was imminent.
‘I found out on WhatsApp. I was on a train. I burst into tears. Two lovely women, complete strangers, comforted me.’
It’s a trivial thing, but it speaks volumes that she wasn’t even informed, she says.
‘It shows how far down the pecking order the victim is.’
‘He’d be out early, wearing a dressing gown, barely tied’