For Jayne, checking the street near her home is an unshakeable habit

She has a panic alarm in her house, and a personal one, fitted with GPS so she can be traced if it is set off, which she carries with her.

Jayne, 51 – her name has been changed to protect her identity – always checks the corner closest to her home as she leaves to see if her stalker is lying in wait. Even though she has moved home since the worst of the harassment, it is a habit she has not been able to shake.

She met her future stalker through work in the late 1990s and within two years they were in a relationship.

At the time she had no reason to suspect the horrors that lay in store. “He was charming, very charming,” she said. “It was a couple of years before we got into a relationship, but quickly after that the cracks started to appear. I moved in with him for three weeks and it was a complete nightmare.

“He would play mind games. There was physical and mental abuse. He could be violent, but it is the mental abuse that really destroys you.

“He would take my phone, read through all my messages and send messages to my contacts.”

Jayne split up with him several times, but he would harass her to take him back. “He would do things like park his car in front of mine, or let down all my tyres. He just wore me down so much that in the end it would be easier to go back to him, and I spent years doing that.”

However, after a holiday bust-up, when she discovered he had been having an affair, Jayne swore it was over. “He went home and I was left on holiday on my own,” she said.

“That, for me, was the final straw, but he still wouldn’t let it go. I woke up one morning with 70 text messages saying he wanted me back.”

He was ultimately charged with breach of the peace, but was cleared in court.

Campaigners believe breach of the peace, which was often used to try to tackle stalking, is too vague, and victims will have a better chance of conviction with cases pursued under the new stalking offence.

GARETH ROSE