Celebrity gardener, Diarmuid Gavin, has revealed how he and Alan Titchmarsh set up a sting operation to catch a stalker.
The operation was arranged after the woman confronted Gavin’s wife, Justine, in their Dublin home. At the time Justine was pregnant with the couple’s now 7-year-old daughter, Eppie. She spoke with the intruder, who said that she was in love with her husband, and then contacted the police.
Gavin, who is currently in the throes of preparing for the Chelsea Flower Show, spoke of the incident which was the culmination of months of being stalked by the woman who frequently turned up on the sets of his TV shows.
"I've had some strange fans over the years but she was a proper stalker and for a long time I was the only one who'd ever seen this woman. She was always there," he said. "It got so bad I was scared I'd arrive on set one day and someone would say, 'this is your new producer' or I'd go somewhere and find her having tea with my wife.”
After the police were informed of the incident in his home, no further action was taken. So the BBC hired a private detective. It was then that Gavin and his TV colleague, Alan Titchmarsh, decided to take matters into their own hands. The duo set up a set operation to lure the woman in front of a TV camera and confront her about her actions.
"Alan (Titchmarsh), me and some BBC producers tried to lure her in. She always positioned herself right in front of the camera. Once she was there, we had her. It all died down after that," he explained.
