For nearly four years, Anne McAlpine, a familiar face on BBC Scotland, lived with a mounting sense of dread. The 39-year-old newsreader and journalist, known for her work on Reporting Scotland, Landward, and as the voice behind Scotland's Home of the Year, became the target of a relentless stalking campaign that began quietly but escalated to terrifying proportions.
On February 9, 2026, at Glasgow Sheriff Court, the ordeal reached a legal conclusion. Robert Green, a 71-year-old pensioner from Hillhead, Glasgow, was sentenced to two years of supervision and, more significantly, handed a lifetime non-harassment order. This order permanently bars him from contacting or approaching McAlpine. Sheriff Owen Mullan, presiding over the case, described Green’s behavior as “sinister, unwelcomed and upsetting for your victim,” according to BBC News. The sentence, Mullan explained, was a direct alternative to imprisonment, citing Green’s age, lack of previous convictions, and time spent on remand as factors in the decision.
The story began in February 2021, when McAlpine started receiving handwritten letters at BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow. The contents were initially odd but not overtly threatening—declarations of love, poetry, and gifts such as CDs and jewelry, all signed and dated by Green. “Sometimes I would receive up to three or four in one week, every week for about eight to 12 months, roughly,” McAlpine told BBC News. “A lot of the time, I didn’t even open a lot of these letters. They would end up in the bin, depending on where I was, where I received them or opened them.”
What might have seemed like eccentric fandom soon revealed itself as something darker. The letters suggested Green believed he was in a relationship with McAlpine. He fixated on her TV appearances, referencing the clothes she wore, the colors she chose, and even the way she held her pen. According to Daily Mail, some notes described how she moved her wrists, tied her hair, and even made reference to Princess Diana and Rangers Football Club. One letter, titled “The Girl of My Dream,” was signed by Green and accompanied by a Valentine’s Day card and other gifts.
As the months passed, Green’s attempts to make contact grew more direct. He wrote about trying to phone reception at the BBC, seeking McAlpine’s number, and trying to get put through to her. “He mentioned phoning reception, trying to get a number for me, trying to get put through, which was obviously unsuccessful,” McAlpine recalled in her court testimony.
In October 2021, McAlpine got engaged to cameraman Ken McAlpine. She wore her engagement ring proudly on air. The tone of Green’s letters shifted. “The tone of the letters then changed to feeling, talking about how upset he was and he didn’t know there was somebody special in my life,” she said. “At that point, he said he was going to stop correspondence and as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it.” For a while, the letters did stop, and McAlpine hoped the ordeal was over.
But in 2024, the situation escalated in a way that left McAlpine truly frightened. One night in September, as a colleague dropped her home, she noticed a man—later identified as Green—standing in the street with a carrier bag, making direct eye contact as he approached her car. “He didn’t look like he was friendly, didn’t look like he was looking for directions or going to speak,” she recounted. “So I closed the door, asked my friend to lock the doors. He came right up to the passenger side window and just looked in, which felt really uncomfortable and strange.” McAlpine asked her friend to drive away and immediately called her fiancé to meet her at the door.
The following months brought more disturbing incidents. In early November 2024, McAlpine was home alone when her doorbell rang repeatedly between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. “It was between about 04:30 and 05:00 in the morning and he was holding the buzzer down for what felt like 20 to 30 seconds so it created that sense of urgency and chaos and panic, you know, someone’s really trying to get a hold of me here,” she told BBC News. Looking out her window, she saw a man—again, Green—standing in the middle of the road, staring up at her window with the same carrier bag in hand.
Neighbors soon reported seeing Green outside the building, asking for McAlpine and trying to gain access. These repeated encounters, combined with the earlier letters, left McAlpine feeling “terrified, exposed and vulnerable,” as she described in court. “It has made me aware of surroundings, being watched. No one should be made to feel unsafe in their own home. That has happened and made me feel uncomfortable with my career choice, which I worked very hard at. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable.”
After reporting the incidents to police, officers quickly connected the dots between the man loitering at her home and the author of the persistent letters. Green was arrested near McAlpine’s residence and later found guilty of engaging in a course of conduct that left her in “fear and alarm” between February 2021 and November 2024. He was also convicted of missing two court dates in June and October 2025.
During sentencing, Sheriff Mullan acknowledged the seriousness of Green’s actions. “You showed little remorse or insight to your behaviour,” he said, as reported by Daily Mail. “The nature of your behaviour is such that it has passed the custodial threshold. However, with some hesitation, I can deal with you today without sending you to prison.”
For McAlpine, the impact of those years of harassment has been profound. She told BBC News that she became more anxious and introverted, questioning whether she should continue in her public-facing career. “Do I want to be on TV if this is what it’s going to do to you?” she wondered aloud. “Should I be moving house, should I be changing career?”
Despite the trauma, McAlpine expressed gratitude for the support she received from police and the justice system. “Ultimately I went through a system that listened to me and believed me and I really am very grateful for that. I understand the power of that because there’s so much stress around this sort of situation that if you had that added level of people not believing you or listening to you, it would just be a horrible situation to be in.”
Now, with the court’s decision, McAlpine says she feels a sense of relief and hope that she can finally “draw a line under it.” Not every stalking victim gets that closure, she acknowledges, but she is determined not to let the experience define her. “I’m processing everything and I’m trying not to let it take any more of me than it already has,” she said. “But I did feel much more of a sense of relief than I expected.”
The case stands as a stark reminder of the real and lasting effects stalking can have on victims—and the importance of a justice system that listens, believes, and acts decisively.