My fear now my stalker is free

'I had been working at Meridian, the local TV station in Kent, for only a couple of months when it started.

I was 30, it was my first job reading the evening news, and I immediately began to get fan mail, letters from little old ladies, that sort of thing. It was a small operation at Maidstone, so we'd all open our own post.

I certainly remember the first letter - it was typed, signed Jeremy, and dated 27 May 1998. It began: "Dear Sarah, I don't want to offend you but your new haircut makes you look like a boy." He said he was 27, and that he wanted to invite me out for a drink. "Remember my name, you're going to be hearing a lot more from me," he wrote. I showed it to my co-presenter, Geoff Clark. I said: "Listen to this. I should keep an eye on this one." The letters became more frequent - he sent 11 in July and five in August. Often he would enclose little gifts, chocolates. The letters started to become more personal. He said there was a certain jacket I wore which showed off my cleavage, and that he could see my nipples through another one. He told me he thought I had nice tits - he called them "jelly bumps". I thought, well, I'm not going to change what I wear. Everyone at work knew I was getting these letters, but we thought the best policy was to ignore them.

I wasn't that worried - I thought, he's a talker, not a doer, he's not going to turn up. I told the police about the letters in the summer, but said I thought he was harmless. They did a DNA test on the stamp, but he wasn't known to them, and they told me that without an address it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But it all changed when he turned up at the studio in August. He hung around the car park and approached one of my colleagues. The security guard threatened to call the police. After that, I was always walked to my car by security, and I stopped doing the late shift. I commuted to Kent every day because I lived in London, and I was pretty sure Jeremy didn't know where I lived. On air, we are always very careful not to mention personal details, like when we're going on holiday.

He sent me another letter after the visit, saying: "Every celebrity needs a stalker." He called me his "pocket Lockett". He sent me a photograph of himself with the head snipped off; it was a bit Silence of the Lambs, very creepy. I was living with my boyfriend, who is now my husband, and he was a bit casual about it really. He hadn't seen any of the letters - I never took them out of the office - and he said: "You're an adult. If you think it's bad enough you'll go to the police again."

Then I thought it was all over. Jeremy sent a letter saying he was going to Coventry to train as a teacher, and he gave his full name - Jeremy Dyer - and address for the first time. I thought, well, if he turns up with an axe we can go and get him. He said he wasn't going to write any more; it was such a relief. I wrote to him saying I was glad he enjoyed the programme, I would prefer it if he didn't try to contact me, and enclosed a signed photo. I thought he would realise it was a brush-off. But he took it as encouragement. Later, he wrote about the photograph I had sent him: "Bad girl, this is a green light to a stalker." I realise in retrospect that any communication should have come from a male colleague and not from me.

He didn't write for three months. He said in the trial that he thought he could give up his addiction to me but he couldn't. Then it all started up again. At Christmas, I got letter number 29. He wrote that he had come to the studio one night and seen me getting into my car. He drew a map to show he knew exactly where my car had been. I felt that he was working up to something: he was getting bolder each time, and he was getting closer. I had actually spoken to him on the phone, although he didn't realise it was me. He would phone six or seven times one day, asking to speak to me. Without thinking, I picked up the phone and the minute I heard his voice I knew it was him. He sounded dazed and a bit odd. He suddenly seemed much more real.

Letters would begin: "Darling, I had another dream about you ..." He wrote that he dreamed he was looking down my top. This is the flipside of celebrity. People fantasise about you, and you have no control over that. Female newsreaders tend to attract this kind of attention more than most, because you're not an actor, you're talking directly to the viewer.

After he came to the studio, my boss wrote to him, saying if he didn't stop we would go to the police. My co-presenter said: "Why are you giving him the benefit of the doubt?" I said: "Well, he's a bit sad, he's probably harmless." He would always write: "You've got my name and address, I can't be much of a threat." But then in April Jill Dando was murdered, and I started to get really scared. He wrote to me a few days after it happened, saying: "I supposed you would be considering that Jill Dando just got her brains blown out by a probable stalker. Oh well." He started to send me cuttings about the case, and strange little poems with the word Jill rhyming with kill; he said that as she read bulletins, she would get a bullet through the head.

I didn't know it at the time, but while he was in Coventry he paid for someone to tape all the Meridian news programmes and post them to him. He was also trying to find out my home address. He started to write about being a serial killer; he became more fantastical and violent. He wrote one letter when he was drunk in a pub - it was hand-written on lined paper and the tone was very different. People ask me why I read every word, but I had to know what he was planning. I had started to wear my engagement ring on air, and he noticed it on day one. He wrote: "I see you've got engaged, I don't want to stalk someone whose going to marry someone else and have someone else's children." Then he sent me a poem about cutting my boyfriend's flesh away. He said he had something in mind for me in the summer - "Come summer '99 you're mine" - but I wasn't going to wait to find out what it was. I found out in the trial that he was trying to get a workexperience job at the studio.

But then a letter came to my home, and my blood ran cold. I thought, he's found me, the net is closing. He had written to my university, trying to find out my address, and although they refused to give it to him they agreed to forward a letter. Now I felt it was only a matter of time. He sent 60 pages of typed A4 paper to the office, and a little pair of paper underwear.

I called the police, and they came to the studio. When they saw the references to Jill Dando they blanched.

The last letter was on 4 June 1999. The police said we had to assume he had my address. They told me not to open my door to anyone, to always check through my spy hole, to lock all my windows. My boyfriend would travel a lot for work, so I was often on my own. I would get home and check all the rooms, even behind the shower curtain. I would draw all the curtains the minute I got in. I wasn't sleeping very well by this time. I would check up and down the road every time I went out.

They arrested him in the school staff room where he was working and brought him down to Kent to interview him. At the trial he was asked why he picked me, and he said it was something about my voice rather than the way I look. It was personal, the same way you fall in love with someone. He said he had tried to get into stalking Gabby Yorath, but he didn't fancy her enough. At the trial he said he didn't mean to upset me, he thought I would be interested to receive the letters. But he knew he was stalking me, he knew that what he was doing was criminal.

I had to give evidence, and I remember driving to the trial that morning and I was shaking. In my job you get used to doing things that frighten you, so I looked composed, although I was very nervous inside. It was the first time I had met him. He had thick, pebble glasses, thinning hair and an unfortunate smirk.

It was like being in a room with the devil. I didn't want him to know how frightened I'd been, but I had to tell the court. When I got back to the office, everyone asked: "What was he like?" And I said: "Oh, I feel quite sorry for him." One of the secretaries said: "I knew you'd say that!" Women tend to blame themselves; I kept thinking, perhaps I encouraged him. I shouldn't have let this go on and on.

He was sentenced to two and a half years, but he came out of prison after 15 months. One of the terms of his probation is that he seeks psychiatric help - the report in the trial found he had traces of narcissism and schizophrenia. The police warned me that he was being released. That first week was very bad; I thought, right, how quickly could he be at my home? The Crown Prosecution Service had accidentally given him my home address, so he could have just turned up on my doorstep. I still lock every door, and check the back seat of my car before I get in, but the fear is fading, especially since we moved house. I'm still working in television - I enjoy the job, but I've realised you just have to be careful.

There is a lifetime ban on his contacting me in any way. He said that because he was my stalker, our names will always be linked. But I don't care what he's thinking, sitting in his parents' home in Kent, as long as he leaves me alone. I want to let other victims know that it's not their fault, that you don't have to put up with it. But I do wonder if I'm doing the right thing talking about it. It might incense him; he might leap out from behind a car one day. I might live to regret it. But you can't live life in the shadows.

What to do if it happens to you