A STALKER’S victim has told of her life of "despair" as her tormentor’s obsession left her terrified, vulnerable and on the edge of a breakdown.

The 36-year-old woman, from Leybourne, was speaking after Phillip Callander was given a two-year restraining order by magistrates this week.

Callander, 36, of Butchers Lane, Mereworth, had been found guilty at an earlier hearing of two counts of harassment without violence and one of intimidating a witness.

His victim broke her silence after Callander was sentenced on Wednesday, telling of the effects his abusive phone calls, text messages and letters had on her and her fear as he trailed her to and from work.

The stalking campaign waged by Callander began in May 2004 with abusive phone calls, text messages and calls to her parents.

The woman said: "I felt as if I was being checked up on. I was at the point where I would dread turning my phone on because it would bleep with a message from him."

Callander wrote a letter to the woman’s mother, who wrote back to his parents asking them to get him to leave her alone. Things went quiet for a while, and the messages stopped after she changed her phone number. But then Callander began turning up at West Malling station.

"It went through my mind: 'Has he been there before and I haven’t seen him? Was that a coincidence or has he been hanging about?'"

Though warned off by the police, Callander continued to appear at the station on several days of the week.

"His usual mode of transport is a tractor," said the woman. "I would see a tractor parked up and think: 'He’s there.'"

As well as phone calls to her workplace during the rest of the year, the woman received flowers and four hand-delivered letters at her home, and Callander would still appear on her route to work months into 2005.

The woman logged between 70 and 80 incidents in total, over several months.

"In the first few months I would have times when I just thought it could drive me to a breakdown. I couldn’t see how it was ever going to end. It was just complete despair really."

But although she has the support of a number of neighbours whom she has told about the situation, Callander’s victim is not convinced her ordeal is over.

Callander was convicted in November of two charges of harassment and one of intimidating a witness, having originally pleaded not guilty to the charges.