A man who was jailed for stalking Jeremy Vine has apologised in court after being sued over the campaign of harassment and abuse he waged against the broadcaster.
Vine sued Alex Belfield for defamation and harassment less than a year after Belfield’s conviction for stalking him and others. The high court heard that Belfield had made several untrue allegations against Vine that called into question his honesty, as well as trying to publish his family and friends’ phone numbers online and encouraging people to call him while he was working.
“Belfield never had any basis at all to make the false allegations of dishonesty” against Vine, Belfield’s lawyer, Alan Robertshaw, told the high court on Thursday. “And nor was there any justification for his harassment” of the broadcaster.
Robertshaw added: “[Belfield] wishes to apologise unreservedly for the damage and distress caused to [Vine] and his reputation by his publications and express his profound and unreserved regret for all of the harm for which he is responsible.”
Gervase de Wilde, representing Vine, told Mrs Justice Steyn that his client was “deeply distressed” by Belfield’s campaign, during which it was said he accused Vine of dishonesty in relation to a memorial for his friend John Myers, a respected radio executive who died in 2019.
Belfield was said to have claimed that Vine “publicly and repeatedly lied about his knowledge of the circumstances in which the BBC gave him personally £1,000 by way of a donation” for the memorial. “It was particularly hurtful and distressing that the defendant’s campaign focused on his honesty in relation to an event arising from the death of his friend,” De Wilde told the court.
The judge heard that Vine’s Twitter account was inundated with messages from people referring to Belfield’s campaign against him. Vine’s lawyer said he tried to block Belfield and to ignore his messages “but the defendant sought to circumvent these measures by asking his followers to contact the claimant … and otherwise encouraged his followers and others to perpetuate his campaign against the claimant on his behalf.”
De Wilde said Belfield was initially “defiant” after Vine started proceedings against him. “He published a video in which he referred to [Vine] as a liar. When he entered a defence in these proceedings, he denied liability.”
Last September, Belfield, a former BBC local radio DJ, was jailed for five years and 26 weeks for stalking broadcasters, including Vine, and subjecting his victims to an “avalanche of hatred”.
Sentencing Belfield at Nottingham crown court, Mr Justice Saini told him that while his actions were not “traditional stalking … your methods were just as effective a way of intimidating victims and in many ways much harder to deal with”.
He said there had been “no escape” for Belfield’s victims until bail conditions were imposed before his trial, and he agreed with Vine’s characterisation that the ex-DJ had “weaponised the internet” against those he targeted.
