NEWS AND COMMENT- SOHAM, CAMBRIDGESHIRE: Brian Wilkin, sixty-eight, became obsessed about the possibility that his now former wife was having an affair with one of his work colleagues, which led to the collapse of their marriage in 2015.
After they split, Wilkin sat in his car monitoring his former home where his ex-wife still lived. She eventually moved to a new home in a nearby town, Soham, but he continued to stalk her and his obsession escalated to the point where he was seen repeatedly entering his ex-wife’s new home with a key.
He had placed listening devices (bugs) in her home. His ex-wife was alerted to this when her dog approached her with the device in its mouth. It transpired that Wilkin had been spying on his ex-wife months. He was arrested on December 1. His home was searched by police officers who discovered two keys to the front door to her home and a recording device.
He admitted stalking involving serious harm or distress. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison suspended for two years. The police found that the lengths to which Wilkin had gone to stalk his wife as extraordinary. Detective Constable Ash Bryce said, “I can only imagine the horror the victim must have felt when she discovered the listening devices and that Wilkin had a key to her new home”.
Comment: another example of the usefulness of the ubiquitous domestic dog. They can provide an alarm notifying their owner of intruders, and they can attack intruders and see them off the property, and protect their owners from attacks, but they can also bring a listening device to their owner!
