I was stalked for three years by the creep from C OUN T DOWN
IT WAS an assault as puzzling as it was shocking in its violence. Yet when former Countdown champion Richard Brittain admitted attacking a teenage female supermarket worker with a wine bottle – simply for posting an unfavourable online review of his novel – there was one woman who wasn’t surprised.
Ella Durant knows all about Brittain, 28, and his bizarre behaviour. He came close to destroying her in a three-year stalking campaign that changed her from a sociable young woman into a nervous wreck.
Brittain is now behind bars awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to the attack on 18-year-old shelf-stacker Paige Rolland and for stalking Ella.
Paige, from Glenrothes, Fife, was kneeling in an aisle at Asda where she worked when Brit ta in approached from behind and hit her. The power of the blow left a deep gash and she told Glasgow Sheriff Court she believed she was lucky to be alive.
Stalking is illegal in England and Wales but Ella, 24, claims she was repeatedly told by police there was little or nothing they could do. It was only when Brittain pursued her to Scotland, which has tough antistalking legislation, that he was finally charged with ‘engaging in a course of conduct causing fear or alarm’.
Last night, Ella, a personnel manager, described her ordeal in frightening detail as part of her campaign to strengthen anti-stalking laws in England and Wales. She told how Brittain, who won the TV quiz show Countdown in 2006, had followed her for years and had even posted a chilling online blog called ‘The Benevolent Stalker’ in which he fantasised about kidnapping her.
She said: ‘I feel incredibly let down by the police. I can’t believe it’s taken three years to get any sort of justice. If someone had listened to me and acted sooner then what happened to Paige might not have happened and I would not have been subjected to as long an ordeal.
‘At no point did the authorities in England think to refer me to a stalking advice service or appear to take my complaint seriously.
‘Something needs to be done to bring England up to par with Scotland’s anti-stalking processes.’
Fighting back tears, she explained how she first met Brittain at Greenwich University where she was studying drama and politics and working in the bar. Brittain was a mature history student and something of a loner.
‘I met Richard just after my 21st birthday in September 2012,’ she recalled. ‘It should have been the beginning of the best year of my life. Instead it was a year of hell – with another two to follow.
‘In those days I was an approachable person. I was always smiling. I served him a drink and was friendly towards him, but paid him no more attention than I would any of the other customers. He seemed a bit odd, but harmless. Little did I know.’
A couple of weeks later she was teamed with Brittain at a pub quiz. She was surprised he hugged her when they did well, but thought little more about it. He became a Facebook friend, like many of her regular customers.
‘I had no instinct that he was developing an infatuation with me or was not right in the head,’ she said. But when Brittain kept messaging her about her Facebook pictures, the alarm bells started ringing.
He began to frequent the bar. ‘He would just sit and stare at me. I felt so uncomfortable that I confided in my colleagues and they helped me get work in the kitchen.’
Brittain began harassing Ella on her mobile phone, playing Beatles songs such as I Want To Hold Your Hand down the line, leaving voicemails declaring his love and sending a Valentine’s Day poem to her flat.
‘I was terrified,’ she said. ‘Whenever I saw him, I could barely breathe. I had panic attacks. It was horrible. I was screaming at him to leave me alone.’
In April 2013 she complained to the university authorities, who made Brittain sign a contract saying he would stop harassing her. Within a month he sent a letter to Ella’s home. ‘At that point I went to the police,’
‘I was screaming at him to leave me alone’
she said. ‘I had been reluctant but by now I recognised he was dangerous. s. I assumed they cautioned him. I was as devastated to find out all they hadd done was talk to the university.’
Ella graduated and took a job in Exeter but Brittain continued to call her phone and sent her a Valentine’s Day card after tracing her mother on the electoral roll.
‘He had drawn a picture of himself proposing to me. Us and two children holding hands, our initials in a love heart, a poem. It was all in n gel pens, like you do as a child. I completely panicked and went to the police again. They didn’t really ly take me seriously and I left in tears.’s.’ When Ella moved to Glasgow last August for a new job, she had not heard from Brittain for six months. But he then sent Ella a private Twitter message trying to get her to look at his self-published novel The World Rose. ‘I didn’t bother going to the police as I didn’t want to get rebuffed again,’ she said. ‘I believed he couldn’t find me in Scotland.’
Yet within weeks Brittain had tracked her down. She walked out of the store where she worked and saw him on a bench outside. ‘He waved at me and walked towards me. I froze and couldn’t speak.’
She called 999 as he followed her down the street. The police met her at Glasgow’s Central Station, took a statement and drove her home. She spent the next day holed up in her flat in fear. The following week Brittain appeared again as she returned from work. She screamed and the police were called, but they couldn’t find him.
On September 23 he posted a blog, threatening to kidnap her. He wrote: ‘I was going to tell her that if she c came with me, and we faked a kid-napping, we would both become f famous. We would go into the hills and camp out for a few days while the nation searched.’
On October 3, after he attacked Paige, he was finally arrested. Her ‘crime’ had been to criticise his b book, which he creepily billed as an ‘e ‘epic fairytale romance’ and whose central character’s name was an anagram of Ella’s. He was granted b bail and refused to plead guilty.
Though Brittain is now in custody, E Ella is cautious about the future.
‘I’m not the same person I was. I’m cautious. I’m wary. I’m always looking over my shoulder and find it hard to breathe if I’m walking home alone in the dark. It’s horrible. I withdrew into myself and made an effort to look unattractive. I didn’t want to attract attention.
‘Something really needs to be done to raise awareness of the seriousness of stalking. The police need to be more aware of what powers they have. I was terrified to go to the police, not wanting to bother them and believing they wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. It is unbelievable that no action was taken until this creep turned up in Scotland out of the blue.’
‘His blog threatened to kidnap me’