Inadvertently renting your holiday home to the man who is stalking you could be a plot from a Hollywood horror film.
When police burst into the property, they find the obsessive has fled, but a stool sitting beneath a skylight in the loft seems to show he was there to hole up and spy on his target’s house next door.
Far from a fiction writer’s fantasy, this is the chilling scene that met This Morning star Fern Britton and the police officers tasked with protecting her in the quaint Cornwall town where she settled in 2020.
On Tuesday, the full details of Miss Britton’s ordeal at the hands of fixated fan James Haviland, 63, resulted in a judge banning him from the entire county for a decade.
James Haviland, 63, arrives at Basingstoke Magistrates Court in Hampshire
He was handed a a ten-year restraining order
Haviland pleaded guilty to stalking the former This Morning presenter
At Basingstoke Magistrates Court, prosecutors described how Haviland’s campaign of stalking began in November 2021 by sending Miss Britton ‘unwanted flowers’ and cards but escalated across two years, leading the TV star to fear what his ‘end game’ was.
Haviland had first sent a bunch of red roses – named ‘Love Letter’ – with an unnerving card which said ‘I think you are amazing’, with a further note inside saying: ‘You are beautiful, keep safe, keep smiling. PS I am sure you get this thing all the time.’
The 63-year-old then made an order for a bunch of Get Well Soon flowers costing £57 in June 2022 but he did not complete the order.
But in June 2023 he again sent flowers and a card which said ‘Well Done on Your Running’ followed a month later with even more flowers, this time with a birthday card which read: ‘Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, hope you have a great day’ and signed ‘Jim’ with a kiss.
By this time, Miss Britton had found out the name of her disturbed admirer from the florist in question.
But she could not have known that he had already been making the four-hour drive from his Hampshire home, to stay as near as possible to the Big Brother star’s picturesque Cornwall home.
It was in September 2023 that he pushed boundaries further by renting Miss Britton’s own holiday home, which gave him a ‘personal view of [her] garden’.
When popping over to see if he was enjoying his stay, it then dawned on the much-loved presenter that ‘she recognised his face’, presumably from seeing him lurking in the area previously.
The stalker effused ‘about rebooking but next time, bringing his cycle and taking nice pictures’ but Miss Britton knew something was wrong, before realising this was the same man under whose name the floral deluge had been sent to her.
She called the police but by the time they got to the cottage, Haviland had gone.
Disturbingly, they discovered he had been sleeping in the loft room, rather than the master bedroom, and had placed a stool under an opened skylight which overlooked the TV star’s home.
On his phone it was later discovered that he had screenshotted a tweet that Miss Britton had made, and had obtained ‘a photo of Ms Britton with someone, but the someone else was cut or cropped out of the photograph,’.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Miss Britton said with characteristic bravery: ‘It’s worrying, I would like him to stop before he does more.
‘There is a point when I know this is inappropriate and I’m asking myself what is his end game here.
‘Last night for example I didn’t sleep well, I have been worrying about it and I’m considering my personal safety.’
Britton said she moved to Cornwall to ‘get away from this type of level of recognition and intrusion’ and instead wanted to live by herself ‘writing and enjoying life’.
‘I do not want to be hyper-vigilant again – I am not a party person who goes out to showbiz events,’ she continued.
‘I am entitled to live a life that is pleasant, enjoyable, and free of worry.’
Representing the stalker, Ed Stott told the court that Haviland ‘understands how it looks’ and how he understands that it appears ‘very sinister’.
The court heard Haviland worked until 2017 before he retired and found himself ‘in the vicinity’ of her address in November 2021 and crossed paths with Britton there – which he claimed was a ‘coincidence’.
‘Then, shortly after that, he has a celebrity crush – he acted on that in he describes as an escapist type of way and sends her flowers shortly afterwards’ Mr Stott added.
He told the court that Haviland is married to a psychiatric nurse and is also a keen photographer who was working towards a royal photography society accreditation.
‘He wants these matters over and done with and has done everything he can to expedite things,’ he added.
Mr Stott added that Haviland, a married father, had placed a stool by the Velux window because he wanted to open it and denied that he had been following Ms Britton.
He said Haviland claimed he had first seen Miss Britton in November 2021 while taking photographs in north Cornwall for his portfolio which he had been working on since he retired in 2017.
He continued: ‘He is embarrassed by his behaviour and he is devastated with the effect it has had on his family.’
Miss Britton is also a successful author
But after pleading guilty to stalking, District Judge Stephen Apted told Haviland: ‘You had become obsessed with your victim and it’s clear from her victim personal statement that your behaviour has caused her distress and anxiety’.
He added: ‘That campaign took the form of sending unwanted flowers and cards to Miss Britton’s home address, finding out where she lived, staying in the same village, making bookings for stays in her holiday cottage.
‘You have clearly been able to identify her holiday home and while you were in it you chose to use one of the rooms that over looked Miss Britton’s private home.’
As well as a ten-year restraining order, the defendant was handed a 12-month community order and ordered to undertake 150 hours of unpaid work and pay a £114 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.
Haviland, from Chineham, Basingstoke, had earlier previously pleaded guilty to stalking without causing fear, alarm or distress, between November 20 2021, and September 16 2023.
The Celebrity Big Brother star only moved to Cornwall from Buckinghamshire in 2020 after she split with her TV chef husband, Phil Vickery
The presenter – who has also penned a series of highly successful books – said the move had helped her heal after 20 years of marriage, and her parents passing away.