Harry Styles: homeless man found guilty of stalking star

A homeless man who spent months camped outside the north-west London home of Harry Styles has been found guilty of stalking the pop star.

When Styles first saw Pablo Tarazaga-Orero outside his home on a wet night in March, he was “sad to see someone so young sleeping rough”, he told Hendon magistrates. He offered him money for a hotel or food. “He told me that he couldn’t accept the money for religious reasons,” Styles said. “He said he was vegan.”

The morning after he first encountered Tarazaga-Orero, Styles gave him vegan food. “He asked me if I wanted to go to a restaurant and eat with him,” Styles said. “I told him I was on my way to work so I couldn’t. I found it a little odd.

“His facial expression made me feel a little uneasy; it was a kind of smirk. I realised there was something not quite normal.”

Styles said that Tarazaga-Orero began showing up at Styles’s local pub up to four times a week, entering the establishment “anywhere between a minute and two minutes after I arrived”. It was at this point that Styles started to feel he was being followed.

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Styles was at home when Tarazaga-Orero posted almost £50 in cash through his letterbox. The man later posted two notes listing his bank details through the door, asking for the money Styles had offered him on their first meeting. He also stopped the singer while he was running in Regent’s Park and asked him for money.

The encounters made Styles feel “unsafe and uneasy” in his home, leading him to employ a night guard, lock his bedroom door at night and assess “weak spots” in his residence. “If I see people on multiple occasions, I view them differently than I would before,” he told the court. He reported Tarazaga-Orero to the police in June 2015.

Tarazaga-Orero told the court that Styles “was trying to buy me with money” and that he had “a vision” that the pair would be together in Ireland.

He said Styles had offered the cash so they could go to a hotel to “have some fun”. Styles denied the allegation.

Tarazaga-Orero said that he never intended to stalk Styles. “In the end I just wanted the money he offered me. I don’t have any feelings for him. I’m not in love with him.”

District Judge Nigel Dean said that Tarazaga-Orero was neither a credible nor a reliable witness. “Mr Styles felt sorry for a young man he saw to be living without a home in winter.

“I find the suggestion that Mr Styles suggested he would accompany the defendant to a hotel for fun to be completely incredible. He was trying to help another for whom he felt sorry.”

Tarazaga-Orero will be sentenced on 21 October.