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Aberdeen TV presenter Isla Traquair opens up about devastating impact from stalker

Jonathan Barrett was found guilty of stalking Isla Traquair. Picture by Solent News
Jonathan Barrett was found guilty of stalking Isla Traquair. Picture by Solent News

Former newsreader Isla Traquair has spoken for the first time of her ordeal at the hands of a stalker and the devastating impact it has had on her life.

Aberdeen-born Traquair, 42, who was a newsreader for STV and Channel 5, spoke out after Jonathan Barrett was last week found guilty of stalking her.

She revealed how she had just bought a cottage in the Cotswolds after returning to the UK from America, when she first encountered Barrett, a neighbour, who had let himself into her home to speak to her.

‘I moved to America to get away’

Barrett began to harass Traquair, including shouting at her and staring into her house. Problems became so bad that she began regularly staying with friends.

Traquair, who grew up in Westhill, said: “It broke me. I was in fear for my safety for most of a year, and I even moved to America because I had to get far away.

“I was a shell of myself. I lost weight. My hair started to fall out. This man’s behaviour affected every single aspect of my life.

“I’m still having panic attacks. I have no home. A relationship has since broken down. It’s upset my parents, affected my finances, my ability to work. It has broken me in ways I didn’t even know I could be broken.

Isla Traquair in 2006, when she worked for STV in Aberdeen.

“The irony is that in my job I have lived in some of the most dangerous places in the world. I have confronted murderers. Yet I’ve never been as terrified as I was in a cottage in rural Wiltshire.”

Last week, Barrett, 53, was found guilty of stalking Traquair in a hearing at Salisbury Magistrates Court.

Magistrate Mina Seales told Barrett that he “pursued a course of conduct that caused alarm and distress”.

He will be sentenced later this month but was handed an immediate restraining order to not contact Traquair or enter or look into her property for one year.

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