Crime Expert on the Stalker Who Threatened to Bomb a TV Studio
"I know where you live. Be very afraid." Those were the words in the emails that began arriving at a regional newsroom, aimed at its main evening news presenter, Alexis Bowater. The stalking ran through both of her pregnancies, while she was visibly pregnant on air, and on through a year of maternity leave.
It was pure cyberstalking, so nobody knew who was behind it. As Alexis puts it, that made it everyone, all the time, everywhere. Outside broadcasts needed extra security. Police drove past her home three times a day, and she slept with a Home Office approved alarm wired to the local police station. When a credible threat was made to blow up the TV studios where she worked, some colleagues went home before the six o'clock news. She still remembers the countdown to going on air, not knowing what would happen at zero.
Police eventually traced the stalker through his IP address, following it across internet cafés up and down the M5 corridor. He was a viewer. Even the court case became a way to control her: he pleaded guilty only the night before she was due to give evidence. He was jailed for four years and one month, one of the longest sentences ever handed down in Britain for pure cyberstalking, and given a lifetime restraining order.
Alexis worked as a journalist for 15 years and has spent as long again campaigning against violence against women and girls, so she knows how stalking looks from the inside and how the system responds to it. There is also a first-hand account of being followed around a university campus by a stranger, and why even someone who had worked in high-security prisons waited before reporting it.
In 2025, 143,000 stalking offences were recorded in England and Wales, yet there were only 3,409 convictions. 77% of victims experience more than 100 incidents before they tell anyone, and stalking comes before 94% of ex-partner murders. So why is stalking still not taken seriously at the start, and why do so many victims wait so long to ask for help? If you are affected, the National Stalking Helpline, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the Holly Gazzard Trust can help.
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