Two women have spoken of their horror after they discovered that a masked man who was stalking them was actually someone they went to school with.
Sean Miller became obsessed with two females he remembered from Inverurie Academy and decided to stalk them.
He even turned up outside their homes at 3am hooded and dressed in black.
The 22-year-old also pretended to be a woman called Olivia on the popular shopping app Vinted to try to trick the women into sending him pictures of them modelling revealing clothing.
Ironically, his Vinted profile would eventually prove to be his undoing and lead police straight to his door.
When the creepy stalker was revealed as Miller, his two victims said they were shocked and “freaked out”.
Stalker secretly photographed victim
One victim, 24, said that Miller turned up outside her home on three occasions, including New Year’s Eve, where he would try to open the front door handle in the early hours of the morning.
Thankfully, the woman was out of the house during most of these incidents but would receive the disturbing footage of the hooded stranger via her Ring doorbell camera.
Another woman, aged 22, also said Miller, of Brandsbutt, Inverurie, was seen loitering outside her home under the cover of darkness and on one occasion took a photograph of her as she sat studying in her kitchen.
She said: “When the police told me who it was, I totally did not expect it.
“I would never have suspected that it was him – it was a bit of a shock.”
Miller asked women to model revealing clothing
During this period, which lasted between October 2022 and May last year, the two women also became suspicious about messages they were receiving on the online secondhand clothes app, Vinted.
Both victims said they received messages from someone called ‘Olivia’ who asked them to send pictures of them trying on the clothes they had for sale.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told that Miller created Olivia’s Vinted profile so he could continue stalking the women online.
One woman said the messages then requested for her to send different angles and even clothes that she owned but didn’t have for sale.
“At first, I didn’t think anything weird about it because I thought it was just a girl wanting to see a dress from behind,” she said.
“But it got weirder and started asking for specific things – like he asked me to wear a pink latex two-piece.
“This wasn’t something that I had for sale. It was something that I had worn on Halloween one year and was within my social media pictures – I found that really strange.
“Looking back now, I can see that he was going through my social media.”
Posing as Olivia, Miller then started asking for his victims to model bikinis and high heels, which made them suspicious and eventually contact police.
Police Scotland contacted Vinted, which provided the IP address used to create the Olivia account and it linked back to Miller.
Victim now obsessed with security
Upon finding out from police that it was Miller who had been stalking her, one of the women said there was an element of relief because she knew him.
“I had expected it to be some older and creepy guy,” she said, adding: “But [Sean] was younger than me.”
“But the scary part is that you never really know what someone is capable of.
“It didn’t get really scary until the police said they thought it was someone who had a fascination with us.”
She said the whole incident has “freaked her out” and is obsessed with security around her home.
“I just have the fear now,” she added.
In the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner and attending at the women’s home addresses without permission.
He also admitted a third charge of repeatedly sending unsolicited online messages that placed his victims in a state of fear or alarm.
Miller’s defence solicitor, Iain Hingston, said his client was a “young man with a lot of difficulties”.
“This is a matter that’s very serious and very disturbing,” he said.
“Mr Miller is not shrinking for the fact that this is extremely strange behaviour.”
Sheriff Rory Bannerman described Miller’s two victims as “entirely innocent” who did “absolutely nothing to bring about the fear you caused to them”.
He added: “But you are still a young man, and we have to try to steer you away such obviously concerning behaviour.”
As an alternative to a prison sentence, Sheriff Bannerman made Miller subject to a community payback order with supervision for two years and ordered him to carry out 140 hours of unpaid work.
He also put a non-harassment order in place, meaning Miller cannot approach or contact his victims for three years.
For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen as well as crime and breaking incidents, join our Facebook group.