SINGER BREACHED RESTRAINING ORDER
AN OPERA singer who was given a lifetime restraining order for delivering a series of bizarre gifts to a Dorset woman has appeared in court for breaching the order.Weymouth magistrates heard how Jude Le Grice, 32, spent five years harassing Rebecca Norton and her parents Michael and Linda Brown who all live in Blandford St Mary.
Prosecuting, Jane Marlow said: "The defendant waged a five-year campaign against this family because he is infatuated with the daughter.
He did some odd things such as taking a mannequin wearing a wedding dress from an exhibition and presenting it to Miss Norton and digging up her garden and planting a tree there.
As a result of the many occasions he turned up unwanted at their home he was convicted of harassment in October last year and made the subject of a lifetime restraining order and a three-year conditional discharge.
Mrs Brown said the breach of the order happened when the family were all at home and the defendant turned up at their house.
She told him that he shouldn't be there and he asked if Miss Norton was at home.
Mrs Brown told him that she was on holiday and that she had a boyfriend and didn't want to see him.
She said he'd be in trouble if he was seen by the police.
Le Grice was charged with visiting the family's home on Saturday, July 19, and Sunday, July 27, without reasonable excuse when prohibited by a restraining order directing him not to have any contact with the family and not to visit their home.
In mitigation, Ian Graham said: "It is clear there has been an infatuation, an obsession, that's evidenced by the unusual behaviour the defendant has displayed in the past.
This is an opera singer, someone with an extremely good career, a good family and to all extents and purposes a good life, save for this one continuing series of events.
The offences were serious but they were done out of love, not through an intention to harm." Le Grice did not enter a plea and the case was adjourned for two weeks.
The magistrates granted him bail on the condition that he resides at his parents' house in Penzance, Cornwall, and is there every night between 9pm and 7am, that he doesn't enter Dorset except to attend court or pre-arranged legal appointments and that he reports to Penzance Police Station every day between noon and 2pm.
Chairman of the bench Edward Burt said they granted bail reluctantly because of their concern for the family in Blandford St Mary.
