The Scotsman

Man hid mobile phone in woman’s car to track her using device’s GPS

- By JAMIE BEATSON

A Fife man who hid a mobile phone in a woman’s car so he could track her movements has been spared jail.

Mark Newsome, 46, from Anstruther, subjected the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to a six-month campaign of harassment.

At one point he hid a phone in the woman’s car to track her movements via its GPS signal. Newsome then bombarded her with texts telling her he knew where she was.

He also admitted a charge of voyeurism after he took pictures of the woman as she dried herself after a shower.

A sheriff yesterday described his actions as “sustained, sophistica­ted and sinister”, but Newsome avoided a jail term. Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard during his stalking campaign carried out between November 2017 and April this year that Newsome had gone through the woman’s phone, taking screenshot­s of private messages and sending them to his own device.

Newsome pleaded guilty on summary complaint to charges of stalking. The offences took place at locations including Upper Largo in Fife and Asda in Kirkcaldy.

Sheriff James Williamson imposed a community payback order with 12 months supervisio­n and 180 hours unpaid work.

He also placed Newsome on the sex offenders register for a year.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom