Spurned lover stalked Invictus Games charity choir singer
A CABARET singer was stalked by an Army veteran after she helped him join the Invictus Games Choir.
Sarah Dennis, 50, ended a two-year relationship with Alan Willetts, a former Royal Engineer, but he began calling her, turning up at her work and following her car.
In one encounter, Willetts, whose grandfather fought at the Battle of the Somme, had to be ejected from Ms Dennis’s membersonly fitness club when he appeared in front of her at a plunge pool.
When she stopped taking his calls, Willetts, 61, threatened to report her for assault. In a statement read out at a magistrates’ court in Manchester under Denise Roscoe, her real name, Ms Dennis said: “The constant stream of messages and contact has caused me harassment and distress – it’s made me exhausted. I want him to leave me alone and stop contacting me.”
Appearing in court yesterday, Willetts, of Tottington, Bury, admitted stalking and was banned from contacting Ms Dennis for two years.
The pair began a relationship in March 2016 and Willetts – who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder – told how Ms Dennis encouraged him to audition for the Invictus Games Choir at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire. The veterans’ choir was set up by the Duke of Sussex in conjunction with the Invictus Games.
In 2016, it performed at the Games’ opening, after being coached by Gareth Malone, the television choirmaster.
Since then, the choir has been taken on by the charity Help for Heroes and appears all over the country.
However, the couple’s relationship ended in February this year. Andrew Martin, prosecuting, said the pair did some charity work together again in July, but Ms Dennis felt Willetts was getting too involved in her life and asked him to back off. But Willetts began calling up to seven times a day.
In August, he was found waiting for her in her gym’s car park. Two days later, he turned up at a pub in Bolton where she was performing.
The court heard Willetts told Ms Dennis he had not known she was there, but called her the next day and threatened to make a complaint to the pub if she did not apologise for the way she had spoken to him.
Days later, Willetts confronted her near the plunge pool at her gym and left a voicemail saying he was reporting her for assault. The following day, he followed her in his car as she drove home.
Stephen Munton, defending, said that his client accepted that his behaviour had overstepped the mark and that he now just wanted closure.
Mr Munton said: “They have a shared interest in charity work and singing, but he found himself in a lost position with his mental health when the relationship ended in February.
“He himself was on medication and the situation was exacerbated by the breakdown of the relationship.”
Willetts was given a 12-month community order and fined £135 with costs and surcharges of £125.