Creepy elderly stalker Robert Eaglesham banned from three northern beaches suburbs
VIDEO: The judge who sentenced a creepy elderly stalker — who haunted the lives of four young women on the northern beaches — has told the court he has ‘never seen anything like it in my career’.
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A CREEPY elderly stalker who haunted the lives of four young women on the northern beaches has been banned from Manly, Balgowlah and Narrabeen for three years.
Chilling details have emerged from the Sydney District Court of how Robert Nisbet Eaglesham, 77, of Manly, kept meticulous daily records — including 5000 photographs and 2500 pages of diary entries on his computer — on just one of his victims between 2011 and 2017.
The court ordered suburb ban means Eaglesham cannot live with his wife in their own home.
Eaglesham secretly delved into the lives of the four women, who all lived in the same apartment block as he did in Pacific St, by secretly photographing them as they left and returned to the building, at the beach and while they exercised.
He even had details of the men the women, aged in their 20s, were dating, including photos.
The Scottish-born retired engineer became so obsessed with his neighbours that he collected items from garbage bins and letter boxes including birthday and Christmas cards from their parents and boyfriends, utility bills, wedding invitations, even medical prescriptions.
He photographed the items and then included the pictures in his stalker dossiers. Eaglesham also scoured social media sites including Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin looking for information on the women.
The grandfather of four also mailed presents to the women at their home and work addresses under the pseudonym “Fred”.
Gifts included Valentines’s Day packages containing jewellery. In one package containing a pendant, Eaglesham inserted a typed postcard saying: “I’ll be watching to see if you wear it”.
Eaglesham also included photos he had taken of the women, telling one of them he “lived at the other end of the beach”.
One woman caught him taking photos of her after getting off the Manly Ferry and while he followed her to her yoga class.
He even managed to get into her unit where he took photos of her underwear and her bed.
His secret dossiers, contained on documents stored on USB memory sticks, contained thousands of pages with multiple photos on each page.
They also included a picture of Eaglesham completely naked as well as videos of the women.
During a sentencing hearing in the Downing Centre Judge John Pickering said: “I have never seen anything like it in my career and not likely to see anything like it in my career.
“(And) I hope not to see one like it again,” he said.
Eaglesham pleaded guilty last year to four counts of stalk/intimidate intend fear physical etc harm and one count of enter a dwelling with intent.
The court heard on Friday that when asked by a psychologist why he stalked the women, Eaglesham replied he was “bored” after retiring.
Eaglesham’s identity was revealed in December 2012 after a police sting operation caught him placing a package into a victim’s letterbox. He was given an apprehended violence order until January 2014, but then started his stalking again.
After one woman complained that he was regularly following her, police searched his unit in July 2017 and found the dossiers.
Judge Pickering said the women, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, would have feared for their safety.
He said the level of obsession and invasion of privacy was outrageous.
“Anyone with a moral compass must have realised this behaviour would have been intimidatory to any woman.
“(We can be) only thankful that nothing worse, than what happened, did happen.”
Judge Pickering placed Eaglesham on a three-year Intensive Corrections Order.
As well as being strictly supervised by Community Corrections’ officers, Eaglesham cannot enter the suburbs of Manly, Balgowlah and Narrabeen where his victims now live.
He must also complete 500 hours of community service.
Originally published as Creepy elderly stalker Robert Eaglesham banned from three northern beaches suburbs
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