Shelagh Fogarty has opened up on her three year stalking hell.
The LBC host was born in Liverpool and she has documented her harrowing story for a new podcast. The Followers is a five part series, which explores stalking and harassment.
Shelagh shares her story as part of the programme and also interviews psychologists, solicitors, police officers and victims to find out what can be done to stop this crime. The former BBC Radio Merseyside presenter spoke about her experiences on Monday's episode of Lorraine.
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The ITV chat show was hosted by Carol Vorderman - and Shelagh explained how it was 2015 when she first noticed a man was waiting for her outside of LBC studios. The 56-year-old grew more suspicious when she spotted him on the Tube home two days in a row.
She added: "The third time I saw him on my train, it was a different train going in a different direction and I thought this isn't right. 'The following week I was waiting to see if he was there again outside the building and he was."
Shelagh tricked the stalker by pretending to take a phone call before turning around to see if he was following. She said she was taken aback to find her stalker had been directly behind her.
She said: "He looked more shocked then me because I half expected him to be there, and he was. He darted away from me. I then held back from going into the tube because I wasn't sure if he was going in there. When I did eventually go down, some ten minutes later, I stepped onto the platform and he was still there."
Shelagh's two brothers and sister-in-law are all Merseyside Police officers and she explained how she took their advice to report him to the police. She said: "For a long time I had actually minimised it, I think that was a coping strategy actually. For too long I treated it like an inconvenience rather than a crime, because it is a crime, after the advice of my brother I contacted the Met and they immediately treated it as a crime."
The police arrested her stalker and issued a restraining order. However, the man continued to stalk Shelagh and she said the "worst it got was when he appeared" at her house.
She added: "I had done everything to allow a gentler approach because I think this man had some social developmental difficulties. Each time that was attempted he got closer until he got to my house."
The Magistrates Court subsequently imposed a lifelong restraining order and banned the stalker from locations close to the radio host. Shelagh issued a plea to anyone who is the victim of stalking to "act really quickly".
She added: "Call the police quickly. Tell friends and employers so you have a support mechanism around you. If you see them and can safely take a photograph, then take one."
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