A stalker who stole a shoe from tennis star Emma Raducanu’s south London home as a souvenir has been sentenced to a five year restraining order banning him from going within a mile of her home.
Amrit Magar, 35, visited the 19-year-old’s family home three times, mistakenly taking a trainer belonging to her father thinking it was hers.
He also left bizarre notes and gifts Bromley Magistrates Court heard.
Magar was convicted of stalking and sentenced to an 18-month community order and was ordered to wear an electronic tag and pay £500 pounds in costs and a £95 victim surcharge.
He was also slapped with a five year restraining order to only visit Bromley for work or to visit family and not to go within a mile of Raducanu’s address. He was also ordered not to go near where the player is competing or training.
Magar, a former Amazon delivery driver from Harrow, travelled to Bromley where the teenager lives with her parents, Ian and Renee, and asked strangers for directions to her home. In a note he claimed to have walked 23 miles to get to her home.
The court heard that Magar, who was originally from Nepal and has been married to a dental nurse for 10 years, had become obsessed with Raducanu after watching the US Open champion’s matches.
The court heard that Magar had targeted the star while unemployed and obsessing about her.
In November he turned up at her house with a bouquet of flowers and a bizarre note signed by him, with his wife’s name, Brina, and their dog’s name, Logan, also scrawled at the bottom.
The note read: “Nothing to say, but you deserve love”.
He was confronted by her parents - but told them he was a delivery driver dropping off gifts from someone else.
Then in December he posted a red envelope through the family’s letterbox with a crude hand-drawn map of his journey from Edgeware in North London, which he undertook on foot.
Next to the map he had written: “23 miles walked for you!”
Two days later, on December 4, he visited again, this time stringing fairy lights and Christmas decorations onto a tree in the family’s garden before posting leftover trinkets and spare batteries through their letterbox.
After realising the porch was open he grabbed her dad’s trainer, believing it was hers.
He later told police he wanted a “souvenir”.
But her father Ian said he recognised Magar from doorbell camera footage and pursued him in his car.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, prosecutor Denise Clewes said: “She (Raducanu) feels she is always looking over her shoulder, she doesn’t feel safe on her own home… she has lost her freedom.”
Statements from Raducanu and her mother and family all said the family were planning to move to a home with better security as a result of the stalking.
Speaking to police last month while in Melbourne preparing for the Australian Open Raducanu said of her ordeal: “Because of this I feel like my freedom has been taken away.
“I feel on edge and worried this could happen again. I don’t feel safe in my own home which is where I should feel safest.”
Ms Raducanu also said she was stressed by the prospect of the public finding out she had a stalker.
She said: “I want to move to a new house with better security because I am worried he might come back as he knows where my home is.”
Finding him guilty, District Judge Kumar said: “I accept there was some degree of planning. Your actions have caused changes of lifestyle for the family not least the acquisition of security measures and moving house. He should not going anywhere near where Ms Raducanu is going to compete or train.”
