Liverpool-born LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty shared her experience of feeling "disorientation and confusion" while being stalked for three years
Sitting down with Global producer Chris James to record a podcast on the topic was the first time the 56-year-old had spoken about her experience "in any depth", including to herself. Shelagh, who is originally from Anfield and grew up in West Derby, said: "It (talking about it) wasn't distressing in any way, but sometimes I would feel that sickness in the pit of my stomach that I would feel when I saw the stalker."
For three years, a man followed Shelagh, appearing outside her workplace, at the station she travelled home from after work, later appearing at her local station in front of her during a meeting with a friend, and even outside her own home, at which point Shelagh "went ballistic at him, and rang the police", who arrested him the next morning.
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After a court case, which Shelagh's Merseyside Police officer brother attended on her behalf, she started having "very sudden night terrors". The former BBC Radio Merseyside presenter would "wake up and imagine that somebody was in the room", which Shelagh described as her "brain emptying out all the stuff that had had to be in it" since the stalking began.
She'd first become suspicious after spotting the man several times in different stations or train routes, so she pretended to be on the phone walking through a Tube station before turning to catch him behind her. He scurried off and Shelagh made a police statement, thinking the problem wasn't too serious and she could live as normal. But, she said: "If I'd known what was going to flow over the next three years, I'd have found another way home that evening."
When he appeared in front of her during a coffee date, at a location she'd changed just an hour before, Shelagh was "angry" and realised he was actively following her around, not just waiting outside places she frequented. She said: "I was fierce in my reaction, rather than tearful and upset, but when I got home, I was tearful and upset."
Shelagh wishes she'd "acted harder sooner" by following a criminal justice route, instead of waiting so long for a "social welfare approach", involving police, social workers and the stalker's family, to work. She said: "It doesn't take a great deal for that crime to be committed, because if you are uncomfortable about somebody approaching you, and they keep approaching you, and they know you don't want them, it's harassment. And it can be twice - it doesn't have to be 15 times before it's harassment or stalking."
The journalist added: "One of the worst things, for me anyway, one of the most difficult things to to deal with was the very fact that somebody was making you spend time on this issue. He was making me make him part of my life, and that's really, really f****** annoying when your life is busy enough as it is, and it really was at that time.
"I was looking after my mum who was needing more support, and I just remember really resenting the amount of time I had to spend giving statements and keeping an eye and giving security in my building photographs of him, and giving my neighbours photographs of him.
"You just think, 'God, it's like a full-time job', and I resented that. That was a massive irritation on the surface, but underneath, what it is, is a loss of privacy. Your privacy is about who you choose to let into your house, who you choose to speak to, who you choose to give your attention to. That's what emotional privacy - you get to say who's in your life and who isn't, and when somebody goes, 'Uh oh, turns out I do', it's a really unpleasant experience."
Talking to people, including academics, police and victims, for the podcast helped Shelagh understand what happened to her, what kinds of stalking exist, and how to stop it. But leading up the the launch of five-part podcast, The Followers, on July 12, the stalking has been on her mind again in a way she doesn't want. She said: "The thing about a stalker is they insert themselves into your life, and I wanted him out of my life, which he appears to be - thank God - so I'm not going to endlessly talk about him and bring him back into my life."
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