Judge lets stalker stand trial with cat to calm his nerves
WHEN a jury files into a courtroom at the start of a trial they are normally warned by the judge to avoid researching the facts of the case online or discussing details with outsiders.
But 12 members of the public sitting in judgment in a stalking trial were given extra advice – about a pet cat.
They were told the defendant would be appearing with the animal because it helped calm his nerves.
In highly unusual scenes, Aidan Wiltshire, 73, arrived in the courtroom with the cat sitting on his shoulders and took his place in the dock, where it shifted on to his lap.
Judge David Turner QC told the eight men and four women on the jury: ‘You might see the head of his cat pop up. He has been allowed to have it in the dock with him.’
He added that Wiltshire was ‘ helped’ by having the black cat, called Taylor.
Special permission was granted for the pet to attend the hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex where Wiltshire was accused of stalking two women.
The jury was told Carol Irwin, a minister, and Alison Gowman, a solicitor, knew the defendant through their place of worship, Hind Street Methodist Church in Marylebone, central London.
The women received numerous letters and phone calls between May 2014 and April 2015 when Wiltshire was living as a woman called Anne.
The judge referred to Wiltshire as transgender, meaning his sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with his birth sex.
Miss Irwin told the court she had been warned about Wiltshire’s ‘intensity’ by other clergy at the church. She said she received three or four letters a week from him and her mobile phone became ‘toxic’.
Wiltshire’s behaviour was ‘ intolerable and persistent’ and she felt so ‘ hounded’ she became apprehensive about attending the church.
Prosecutor Marc Brown said Wiltshire became attached to Miss Gowman and believed her to be his legal adviser. ‘He began writing letters to her place of work and making calls there and to her home and they were persistent,’ he said. Wiltshire arrived at court with his cat in a shopping trolley on Thursday and spent much of the time in court looking down at it and stroking it.
The court heard he had mental health issues and had been deemed unfit to plead, meaning the hearing was actually a ‘trial of the facts’.
The procedure is used when defendants are unable to put forward a defence and there is no finding of guilt. The hearing simply determines the truth of the allegations.
The jury took 45 minutes yesterday to decide Wiltshire had ‘done the acts as charged’.
The pensioner, from Chelmsford, Essex, was bailed until April 12 for psychiatric reports.
When he returns to court, it has only three options available – to make a hospital order, a supervision order or issue an absolute discharge.
Wiltshire was not told whether he would be able to bring his cat with him again.
‘You might see his head pop up’