Maitlis: How could I have been stalked from inside a prison?
Newsnight anchor condemns justice system after being sent letters from jail
EMILY MAITLIS, the BBC presenter, has criticised the criminal justice system for allowing her stalker to pursue his 20-year campaign of harassment against her from inside prison.
The Newsnight anchor said the ordeal had placed a strain on her marriage and made it difficult for her to lead a normal family life. She revealed she lived with “a constant sense of suspicion and fear” as threatening letters continued to come from Edward Vines.
A Cambridge University contemporary of Ms Maitlis, Vines was jailed in 2016 for an “unshakeable obsession” with her. He continued to breach his restraining order by writing to Ms Maitlis from prison and from a bail hostel. At Oxford Crown Court yesterday, Vines was sentenced to a further 45 months in jail.
Judge Peter Ross said it was “inexcusable and wholly unacceptable” that Vines was allowed to continue harassing his victim, and demanded explanations from the governor of HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire and the Probation Service.
“The fact this man was allowed to offend within a prison is something of a scandal,” the judge said.
Vines wrote to Ms Maitlis from prison in November and December 2016, two months after he had been jailed, and again in September 2017 while he was in a bail hostel. One letter was signed off with: “I will not relent until you talk to me.” The letters were intercepted by security at the BBC.
In a victim impact statement, Ms Maitlis said: “When I heard that Edward Vines had breached his restraining order, I felt scared and let down. Scared because it meant that even from within the prison system the perpetrator was able to reach me – let down because the system had been unable to stop him getting in touch.”
She said the stalking had “affected my relationship with my husband, who is frustrated that we cannot get to the bottom of this problem even though we have been tackling it through the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts for over 20 years. And it has scared my children, who thought the threat had gone away, albeit temporarily, while he was behind bars.
“It has affected my ability to do my work – I am constantly thinking of where I am being sent and whether he will be attempting to track me down. And it affects everyday decisions like how I leave the house and how I get to work, what time I feel able to come home at night.”
Ms Maitlis added: “It also makes me jumpy around strangers for no reason, as I fear any advance might be him.”
Vines, 47, of Oxford, has stalked Ms Maitlis since they were students in the midnineties and has served several prison sentences. Judge Ross, who jailed Vines for three years in 2016, told him: “It is clear to me that you are not prepared to accept one simple and absolute truth – that Emily Maitlis does not want anything to do with you, nothing whatsoever, and the passage of 20 years has still not convinced you of that.”