A petrified schoolgirl wrote a heart-rending letter to defend herself against two stalker neighbours.
Kerry Morrison, who was 16 at the time, penned the letter after she was falsely accused, along with eight others, of abusing paranoid neighbours Paul McFadyen and Laura McGlinn. The teenager, now 19, faced a torrent of wild accusations from the couple, who tried to get funding from the Scottish Legal Aid Board to pursue a civil case against innocent neighbours on Hartfield Terrace, Paisley.
Kerry’s letter was considered before SLAB decided to reject McFadyen and McGlinn’s bid for public funding – but they carried on with their own funds. The Record revealed last week how the couple’s use of CCTV cameras, trained on the outside and inside of Kerry’s home, led to a stalking conviction for McFadyen and McGlinn, both 53, at Paisley Sheriff Court.
They later failed to win an interdict, with a power of arrest attached, against the neighbours they dragged before a sheriff at the same court. In her letter to SLAB Kerry begged them not to fund the stalkers’ civil case, which named her along with mum Jennifer, 36, and dad David, 37.
Kerry wrote: “I have never intentionally tried to cause anybody fear or alarm or to intimidate them, even though these two people have deliberately gone out their way to cause me to feel like I am trapped in my own home.”
McFadyen and McGlinn timed and dated footage of Kerry sitting inside the front door of her house, claiming she was staring at them for four hours at a time. At the time of writing, in 2021, Kerry wrote: “Over the last three years, I have seen Laura be aggressive, confrontational, loud and intentionally cause distress to others for no reason.
“I feel that Laura tries to control my entire life … I can’t do normal, everyday things like walk to school, sit in my garden or leave the house.”
Kerry claims that Laura McGlinn contacted Social Services, accusing her of abusing her two little brothers. She wrote: “I worry that if she keeps reporting lies, eventually someone will believe her because she can manipulate people.”
She added: “I first became frightened of Laura in the summer of 2018 when I heard her shouting outside that she was going to get me and my brothers taken away. Not long after that, Laura started staring into my bedroom window from her end window for hours every day.
“I felt so uncomfortable I got my dad to rearrange my room as my bed was under the window. I still do not open my curtain because she still stands there sometimes which adds to why I feel trapped as she can always see me.”
Kerry wrote: “In November 2020, the police told my parents that they had seen footage from Laura and Paul’s cameras that showed my garden and my front door. The cameras could also hear what was being said in our garden at that time too.
“I felt sick. I had spent a lot of the summer sitting at the entrance area inside my house. Knowing that she was watching me that entire time made me feel so uncomfortable.”
She added: “I want to not hide my face in my garden. I also want the threats to stop. I want the lies to stop. I don’t want anything to do with them and I don’t want to feel frightened any more.”
The Record’s previous story told how McFadyen and McGlinn trained CCTV cameras on Kerry’s home. The neighbours from hell claimed abuse by other residents of their street.
But the tables were turned on the couple after a sheriff accused them of imagining abuse by neighbours – and ordered them to pay £37,500 in legal costs. The pair were also convicted of stalking their neighbours when police uncovered hundreds of hours of CCTV surveillance that was gathered illegally.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
