A crime writer stole my life
Alison was stalked, terrorised and hunted down by an ex-lover with a crossbow... so why DID she have to relive her trauma in the pages of a bestselling thriller?
IT WAS only when her stalker was led from the dock at Lewes Crown Court to begin a jail sentence that Alison Hewitt began to accept that her ordeal was over. At the same time she was aware she had been irreparably scarred and would probably always be looking over her shoulder.
When her ex-boyfriend’s vicious campaign of harassment was at its height, Alison endured almost constant grinding fear, acutely aware of ‘every little sensation, every movement, every noise, every shadow’.
But not content with ruining her life, Alison’s tormentor, Al Amin Dhalla, also targeted her mother and stepfather, torching their 500-year-old thatched cottage.
He then armed himself with a crossbow, a large knife and a claw hammer and drove to Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath in West Sussex, where Alison worked, and posed as a doctor to try to access her shift rota. He was stopped by security guards who called police.
Described in court as a psychopathic narcissist, Dhalla, a former City auditor, was jailed indefinitely in June 2012 – for harassment, arson, being reckless as to whether life is endangered, possession of an offensive weapon and damaging property – and told he would serve a minimum of six years.
Afterwards, as the months passed, so the dreadful memories began to fade for his victims. But today, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Alison and her family reveal that just as normality returned to their lives, they received unsettling news: the police force that they assumed was safeguarding their interests had apparently tipped off a bestselling crime author about their case – and he turned the horrific events they had experienced into a novel.
‘He stole our story,’ said Alison’s mother Pam. ‘He’s profiting from what happened to us and the police have helped him.’
In what the family perceive as a further insult, neither the author, Peter James, nor Sussex Police thought to warn them or seek their permission.
Flicking through the novel, titled Want You Dead, they were horrified by the way James – whose series of crime novels has sold 18 million copies worldwide – ‘brazenly’ appropriated large chunks of their story without significant alteration.
He sets his novel in Brighton, where Alison lived.
In the story, his fictional victim is moved to a safe house in Marine Parade. Alarmingly, Alison’s supposedly secret address at this time – which was not known to Dhalla – was Marine Square.
‘The similarities to where I was living at the time was most worrying,’ said Alison, 40. ‘If my stalker had read that he might have found where I was living. He’s clever and he could have found me if he had wanted to.’
As James’s tale unfolded, Alison’s shocked family noted a number of striking similarities between their own story and that of the book’s fictional victim, Red Westwood, and her stalker Bryce Laurent:
Red meets Laurent through a dating agency – which is how Alison’s relationship with Dhalla began
The home Red shares with Laurent is in Church Road. The home where Alison lived with Dhalla was in Church Place
Both stalkers lied about their past and are caught out by private detectives hired by their victim’s parents
Both stalkers use aliases, and despite restraining orders rent flats close to their victims
Laurent torches the thatched cottage owned by his ex-girlfriend’s parents. Dhalla did exactly the same in real life
To the family’s astonishment, James offered thanks in the book’s acknowledgements to the Sussex policeman who led the Dhalla investigation and tipped him off about the case. The author wrote: ‘This novel came out of a phone call 18 months ago from Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp… he told me about a case that he was sure I would be interested in, and which, he felt, might inspire a story. He was right on both counts, and I owe him an incalculable debt…’
Curiously, when the family complained, the acknowledgment was changed in later editions of the book.
This time, James wrote: ‘This novel came after I heard about an interesting investigation led by Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp… I contacted Nev and he told me about the case which inspired this story.’
THE family made a formal complaint and their concerns were investigated by Sussex Police, which denied passing confidential material to James. But it did review its guidelines for dealing with crime writers.
The matter was also investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
A year after the book was published, James – whose bestselling novels feature Brightonbased Detective Superintendent Roy Grace – donated £15,000 to a Sussex Police crime prevention campaign. He said at the time: ‘Sussex Police provides me with some valuable insights for my Roy Grace novels and it is a pleasure to be able to give something back.’
But Pam believes police should never have spoken to him, saying their job is to ‘protect victims, not facilitate their exploitation’.
She added: ‘By his own admis-
sion he is being supported by the police. If we’d been the victim of a burglary, that’s a different sort of crime, but this was a very, very personal and traumatic crime. It’s a clear breach of the ethics and professionalism you expect not only from the police but an incredibly successful author.’
The family were further dismayed to learn of a nonfiction book in which a chapter is devoted to their case. Death Comes Knocking was written by Graham Bartlett – the chief superintendent at Sussex Police when Dhalla was caught and jailed – with the help of Peter James. ‘To pick up that second book after all we had been through was utterly devastating,’ said Pam.
‘We feel betrayed. I had spoken up, written countless letters, raised my complaints with the force and the IPCC, and all for nothing. No lessons had been learned and I’m worried about victims in the future becoming fodder for his books.’
Alison said: ‘The novel made me really not want to trust anybody or anything. I was really shocked that he had used my story without even getting in touch.
‘But I think I was more shocked by the police than Peter James. I was really surprised by their actions.’
Alison’s nightmare began when she met Canadian Dhalla in 2011. They soon moved in together. But after it emerged he’d lied about his past, she evicted him from her flat. He then plagued the family with threats, sending poison pen letters to Alison’s bosses and her mother’s neighbours.
Then he set about acquiring an air rifle, an air pistol and two mini crossbows – and was arrested after being spotted doing some target practice in a field near Chippenham, Wiltshire, in April 2011. He also had a van with a cage fitted in the back. Police found addresses for the family entered into his satellite navigation system.
He was freed on bail – and days later set fire to Mrs Hewitt’s Buckinghamshire cottage while she was on holiday, before driving to the hospital where he posed as a doctor to try to gain access to Alison’s rota. He was arrested, charged and brought to justice by five forces – including Sussex Police, which covers Brighton, where Alison lived.
The force has a well-documented relationship with James, who since 2005 as been writing a fictional series about Grace. To thank police for helping him to make his books ‘authentic’, his publisher donated a police car to Sussex officers in 2008. Another was gifted in 2014, which changes livery each year to match the jacket of James’s latest Roy Grace novel.
Pam said: ‘It was mostly anger we felt and then we were left wondering how he [James] could be so unimaginative.
‘He could have set this anywhere in the country – anywhere in the world – but he chose not only to set it in Brighton but in a Regency flat facing the water in Marine Parade.
‘You don’t leave it so that people instantly recognise that it was our story. I mean people I had never even met knew that it was me.’
After complaining, the family received a letter from James claiming the villain in his book was not Dhalla. But he promised to stop using their names while promoting the book, adding: ‘I think I have said all I usefully can for the time being as I am unaware of having been given any confidential information by the police.’ A subsequent internal investigation by Sussex Police saw the force deny confidential information was passed to James or that Kemp initiated the meeting. The family appealed to the IPCC, which launched an investigation into the way the police handled the complaint. The commission concluded that the confidential address could have been revealed by a local who recognised Alison. ‘The lengths they went to justify that Peter James got the material from elsewhere was astonishing,’ added Pam. ‘They suggested that a member of the public could have seen her walking into her new address. That’s just nonsense.’ She added: ‘ We understood perfectly when the case was in court that people would write about us, and reporters would be interested. We knew what had happened was sensational and we just accepted it. But he isn’t a court reporter, he’s a fictional author and this use of our story was so lacking in imagination and skill that people knew it was us. The fact that the police have supported him in that is so upsetting.’
Detective Superintendent Jez Graves, head of Sussex Police’s Professional Standards Department, said: ‘ Following a complaint from the family, we investigated and found no misconduct by any officer. The IPCC agreed that there had been no police misconduct and the subsequent appeal was not upheld.’
A police spokesman added: ‘Peter James approached Sussex Police after the broadcast of the Channel 4 documentary Living With My Stalker in which the [Hewitt] family took part.
‘The documentary gave a comprehensive account of the circumstances and the investigation. Any discussion with Peter James after the documentary was broadcast was in relation to information that was already in the public domain. Peter was not pro-actively contacted.
‘It is possible that any person familiar with Brighton could have identified the landmarks shown within the documentary.’
Mr James was unavailable for comment. His secretary said: ‘This has all been investigated by the IPCC and the Sussex Police Professional Standards department who decided no one had done anything wrong.’
I worry other victims will be fodder for his books