The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Anti-stalking role for Elish Angiolini
Scotland’s former top prosecutor who was subjected to a nightmare stalking ordeal has become honorary patron of a charity to support victims.
Former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini, who worked on a string of highprofile cases over the course of her career, has been formally appointed to her role with Action Against Stalking.
Dame Elish has already chaired a Tracking the Stalker conference at Glasgow’s Marriott Hotel after she herself was targeted by stalker Timothy Rustige in 2012.
He had claimed to have worked with CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Rustige was sentenced to nine months in prison for subjecting Dame Elish to threatening e-mails and blog posts saying she was responsible for the coverup of a paedophile ring in Aberdeen.
She said the allegations were hurtful, completely false and merely “the rantings of crazy people and conspiracy theorists".
The court heard that highly defamatory e-mails were sent to Oxford, Aberdeen
“Rantings of crazy people and conspiracy theorists”
and Strathclyde universities claiming Dame Elish was a “satanic woman".
Rustige blamed everyone from his wife, his son – also called Timothy Rustige – to members of a political activist group called Prisoners of Conscience for writing the material when he gave evidence.
Dame Elish, aged 56, spent the first eight years of her career as a depute fiscal in Airdrie, before being seconded to the Crown Office to work as the Lord Advocate’s secretariat.
She was then appointed senior depute fiscal at Glasgow and held the post of regional procurator fiscal for Grampian and the Highlands & Islands before being appointed as solicitor general for Scotland in 2001. She was Lord Advocate from 2006 to 2011.
Action Against Stalking chief executive officer Ann Moulds said: “It is an absolute honour to have Dame Elish as the new patron.
“She’s one of the top legal experts in the country and is very well-respected in her field.”
Ms Moulds set up the charity in 2009 after experiencing stalking and successfully campaigned for the introduction of antistalking laws which were passed the following year.
Prior to 2010, stalking was prosecuted as a form of harassment under breach of the peace.