Former BBC radio presenter Alex Belfield has been jailed for five and a half years.
On Friday, Alex Belfield was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court after being found guilty of four stalking crimes against broadcasters including Jeremy Vine.
Mr Justice Saini stated after sentencing that Belfield’s stalking methods were unethical.
“just as effective a way of intimidating victims and in many ways much harder to deal with” than “traditional stalking”.
“You made communications which had serious impacts on the private lives of the complaints and had distressing effects on their physical and mental health,” he added.
He was found not guilty of stalking former BBC Radio Leeds presenters Liz Green and Stephanie Hirst, as well as Helen Thomas and the BBC’s former North director Rozina Breen.
Belfield was first accused with stalking eight separate people, the majority of whom were current or former BBC employees.
He was found guilty of crimes against two of the complainants, BBC Radio Northampton announcer Bernie Keith and videographer Ben Hewis, who tweeted his victim statement.(copied below).
He was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for each of these offenses, to be served consecutively.
He was convicted guilty of two lesser charges of “simple” stalking in regard to Jeremy Vine and theatrical blogger Philip Dehany, which do not require substantial fear or distress to be proven.
He was sentenced to 13 weeks in prison for each of these offenses, to be served consecutively.
The judge said Belfield had made “wholly false” allegations about Mr Vine stealing £1,000, had published his home address, and left Mr Vine so worried he had “asked his family to watch out for you”.
The verdicts in relation to each complainant were:
1. Rozina Breen – not guilty
2. Liz Green – not guilty
3. Helen Thomas – not guilty
4. Stephanie Hirst – not guilty
5. Bernard Spedding – guilty (majority verdict)
6. Ben Hewis – guilty (unanimous verdict)
7. Philip Dehany – not guilty to the charge on the indictment but guilty of the alternative charge of “simple” stalking (majority verdict)
8. Jeremy Vine – not guilty to the charge on the indictment but guilty of the alternative charge of “simple” stalking (unanimous verdict)
The judge told Belfield he will serve half of his sentence in prison and the remainder on licence.
In addition, the judge made restraining orders for life for all eight victims
