Tale of Britain's worst serial stalker

The full story of how a biochemist with an IQ of 150 became Britain's worst stalker emerged today. Richard Jan transformed from a mild-mannered lab worker to a psychopath who terrorised the health professionals trying to help him.

He hired private detectives to find his victims' homes, made 4,500 crank calls, sent more than 200 threatening letters, slashed car tyres and smashed windows.

Today, relatives and friends spoke about how Jan's psychological problems were the result of years of abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his out-of-work father.

They also said that, as Jan grew older he, too, lost his full-time job and - like his father - became abusive and brutal.

Jan's mother Peggy, who saw her son's darkest moods and regularly suffered abuse and beatings from him, said: "He was impossible to be around. He was so depressed, so ill. He was changing beyond recognition, he was barely my son at all."

Even so, she has consistently refused to report to police the attacks he committed on her.

Last week, after an eight-week trial at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court, Richard Jan was convicted of two counts of arson with intent to endanger life and one count of causing a public nuisance. He will be sentenced on 9 July.

Detective Chief Inspector David Poole said: "He is undoubtedly Britain's worst stalker, a very dangerous individual."

With an interest in military history and astronomy, and little success with women, he appeared a harmless loner. Even to those who saw his dark side he was emphatically not a psychopath, not a fire bomber and not Britain's worst stalker.

Yet that is precisely what he became after developing an obsession with his local mental health team in Ealing. At his mother's request they had carried out an assessment of him on 9 October 1996, but, when he reacted badly to their questions, he was arrested.

The arrest convinced Jan, 37, that the authorities were bent on ruining his life.

His response was to declare war on everyone involved in his case - doctors, nurses, probation officers, social workers, councillors and even a hospital chief executive. He made nuisance calls and sent menacing letters from a room he rented in Streatham.

Dr Peter Stanley, 50, who had studied with Jan at university and rented him the room, said: "He had been away at his parents' for a few days and came back furious. He told me what had happened - from his perspective, obviously - and I told him he was quite right. I even helped him write the first few letters."

Documents found later by police showed Jan called his campaign "Operation Saffron Sun" and it meant six years of hell for his targets.

He bombarded his social worker Shauna Bailey with calls, followed her car, smashed it up, attacked her on two occasions and set her car on fire. The ordeal only stopped when she changed her name and moved homes but she has not been able to work since.

Ealing councillor Liz Brookes was lucky to escape alive after waking to the sound of what she thought was running water. In fact it was Jan pouring petrol, which he then lit, through her letterbox.

At his trial, it was clear the intervention of social services was the trigger for his hate campaign, but the roots are much deeper.

His mother, who calls herself Peggy but was born in Iran with the name Poorghik, came to Britain to train and work as a nurse in 1958 aged 20.

On a visit back to Tehran after seven years she met her husband-tobe, Jean Jan, 20 years her senior. Eye surgeon Mr Jan moved to London but was unable to immediately secure a job as a consultant and rather than accept a lesser position temporarily he simply gave up.

He earned the nickname "Mr Armchair" but his problems were not restricted to sloth. A foul-mouthed and abusive man he bullied and beat his wife and, once they could walk, both their sons.

RICHARD JAN, the elder son, was doted on by his mother and in consequence found himself particularly targeted. With an IQ of 150, he excelled at Ealing College for Boys but remained withdrawn. By his teenage years he had become actively paranoid. On one occasion, a child who dared make a face at him was beaten to the floor with a lump of wood. He also began to follow his father in abusing his mother.

With a degree in biochemistry he landed a job in the laboratory of the Queen Charlotte Hospital in Hammersmith but, at 27, he was made redundant. On visits home he became increasingly bad tempered. So fearful was Mrs Jan that her son was falling into the same malaise as her husband she called social services and let slip he had threatened to kill her.

Six days later Shauna Bailey arrived with two doctors and police as back-up. They remember coaxing Richard Jan from his room before asking questions. He became abusive and was arrested.

Psychiatrists judged him mentally ill but not a danger. As he refused to submit to treatment voluntarily he could not be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and was instead brought before magistrates for a breach of the peace. He was bound over and released but, within an hour, he had returned to the family home and started smashing windows.

Although he was only bound over again, it was to him evidence of a plot to destroy him and he became obsessed. "He is a very sick man indeed," said one former associate. "He is a danger to anybody. Whatever sentence they give him I hope he ends it a different man. If they let him go otherwise, he will start again."