'I fear that my stalker will kill me one day'

Katherine, a mum-of-one from the north-east, tells us how she has been terrorised by John Hall since having a brief relationship in 2021

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As the figure in the mist loomed into focus, Katherine's breath caught in her throat. She was miles from home, halfway up a mountain with her walking group and just a few hundred metres behind her was the man who had already been arrested on multiple occasions for stalking her.

John Hall, who she'd been in a brief relationship with when they worked together at a bus company in 2021, had spent the months since they had split harassing her. He bombarded her with messages and calls, and would turn up at the flat she shared with her nine-year-old daughter, even buzzing her neighbours' doors in the early hours of the morning to gain entry. Despite his bail conditions forbidding him from coming near her, Hall tracked her down to Helvellyn, a mountain in the Lake District, in September 2024.

“My legs turned to jelly,” says Katherine. “I was absolutely terrified. He kept staring at me. He followed me for seven hours as we hiked the trail, then sat in the boot of his car and waited while me and my friends went into the pub to get away from him.”

Hours later, Katherine, 39, skirted the car park to avoid him, escorted by her friends. But as soon as she pulled out of the car park, there he was in her rear-view mirror. “My friend rang me to warn that he'd jumped into his car as soon as he saw me drive away,” she says. “He told me, ‘Put your foot down, get home and call the police.’”

Katherine pulled into a petrol station to dodge Hall. “I flew into the forecourt at 60mph in a panic because I didn’t want to warn him I was going to pull in,” she says. She waited for 15 minutes to give him enough time to believe he’d lost her, before setting off again. Chillingly though, Hall was holding up traffic by crawling along at 30mph on the carriageway.

He pulled into a lay-by then spotted her overtaking him.