TWISTED Alloa man Kevin Lyons remains behind bars this week after being convicted of stalking a woman for almost two years.

He repeatedly walked or cycled past her home, stared into her home address from the street and stared at her in the street while grabbing his crotch.

The 34-year-old had denied the offence – which took place between January 10, 2015, and October 8, 2016 – and appeared at Alloa Sheriff Court for trial last Wednesday.

He took the stand and claimed to have met the complainer only once, but was described as “palpably dishonest” by Sheriff Christopher Shead, who found him guilty of stalking.

Last Wednesday, the complainer gave her evidence from behind a screen and told the court she had first encountered Lyons when she was five.

Details of what happened then were not put before the court, but were alluded to on several occasions throughout the trial.

The woman told depute fiscal Michael Maguire: “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but I’ve always remembered his face.”

She said that shortly after moving into her home in Alloa she began to spot Lyons in the town.

When asked to describe his conduct, she said: “He was doing his usual: glancing, staring, smirking.”

The complainer saw him again, this time on a public footpath at the rear of her home.

She said: “It seemed like he’d followed me because I didn’t understand how he knew where I lived. It wasn’t just one occasion, either he cycles by or walks past and anytime he does he stares in.”

When asked how his repeated presence made her feel, she replied: “Anxious, intimidated, scared. Made me think what else he could be capable of, considering what he did to me.”

The complainer also described an incident when she and her partner encountered Lyons in the High Street last August. She said he was staring and smirking at her before he “grabbed his crotch and made a face of some sort” in her direction.

She also said he appeared while she was on a trial shift in an Alloa pub.

She added: “He froze and stared right at me. I had to tell the owner I couldn’t work there. It felt like he was following me everywhere; I felt like everywhere I went, he was there.”

Defence agent Mike Lowrie suggested that Lyons was “just going about his lawful business.”

However, she replied: “It’s the way he goes about it. He’s put me through hell because of what happened to me where I was younger. I moved away so I wouldn’t have to see his smirking face … like he’s gotten away with it.

“I’m not going to make all this up and bring up the past – something we can’t discuss here, for some reason.”

The complainer’s partner then took to the stand and said: “He [Lyons] knows what he’s doing. He goes past six or seven times a day.”

He described the same incident where he grabbed his crotch “with a seedy smile on his face”.

After the Crown concluded its case, Lyons took to the stand and denied having met the complainer before the incident in August.

However, Mr Maguire then cross-examined the accused and questioned whether he encountered the complainer in 1995. He replied: “Yes.”
Lyons admitted that he would have regularly travelled past her address but only to visit a family member that lived nearby.

He said he had “no reason” to smirk at her and added that the complainer’s partner had chased him down the street shouting at him “beast, monster and rapist”.

Sheriff Shead found Lyons guilty of stalking and said of his testimony: “It had the virtue of being concise and being clearly articulated, but it was, in the court’s judgement, palpably dishonest.”

Sentence was deferred until November 21 for reports, with Lyons, of Mar Street, remanded in custody until then.