A COUPLE terrorised by a stalker who left a pig’s head in their back garden thought they would end up dead.
Ryan Acton, 20, and his girlfriend Lia Tudor, 17, were hounded for three weeks with hoax calls, eggs thrown at their windows and had a severed pig’s head left in the garden of their home in Fairfax Drive, Westcliff.
Lia nearly moved out of the house with their babyKatie-Mae fearing they would get hurt.
Lee Herman, 35, of Colemans Avenue, Westcliff, admitted stalking at Southend Magistrates’ Court and was handed a 12-month community order and ordered to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work.
Lia said: “The man would call up constantly in the middle of the night and just breathe down the phone. At first we thought it was someone being silly. Then we had the dog poo on the lock and eggs thrown at the window, plus a message saying we should watch what we eat from our Tesco shop.
“When someone walked out of the house he would call five minutes later like he was constantly watching us.”
Herman set up a Facebook account under the username ‘Karma’ and messaged the pair hinting Ryan would meet a sinister fate as payback.
Then a pig’s head was placed outside a cabin in the back garden where Ryan used to sleep, with Ryan’s name written on it.
Lia added: “The morning of the pig’s head I was in bed and I heard screaming downstairs.
“Ryan’s 14-year-old sister found it.
We were both in tears. Ryan was written in red and it looked like it was in blood. I just thought the next step was whoever it was wanted to kill him.”
The couple believe they were targeted because Ryan had an affair with Herman’s wife four years ago when he was 16.
He stopped the relationship after realising it was wrong and has since started a relationship with Lia and become a father.
It took a week for police to trace phone records to track the calls to Herman.
When he was arrested he admitted everything.
Ryan said: “I feel bad for the bloke but he went a step too far.
“I thought it was a psycho who had it in for me. It was the not knowing that was the worst.”
In court, Herman’s mitigating solicitor, Simon Samuels, said Herman was a broken man who was genuinely remorseful for his actions.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article