Mum-of-three endures 10-year stalking ordeal after stranger handed her a flower

A mother who was given a flower by a complete stranger was then stalked by the man for 10 years.

Lorraine Mitchell, 52, spent ten years ‘fearing for her life’ while Sherzad Salih waited outside her home, let down her car tyres and dangerously chased her while driving – after initially handing her a rose outside her office.

However police failed to act because they said there was a lack of evidence.

She even once drove to a police station but was told to go home, because it was closed, and phone 101 instead.

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The nightmare began for the mum-of-three from Hastings, East Sussex, in July 2007.

Salih stopped Lorraine outside her then-workplace where he offered her a rose and asked her to go on a date with him.

But when she declined, he told her he ‘knew everything about her’ and left her worried for her children’s safety.

Lorraine said: ‘A man who was a bit weird looking came up to my window and asked me out with a rose in his hand, but I said no.

‘He kept going on even though I said I wasn’t interested, and then he said “please please give me a chance, I know everything about you”.

‘I had three children at home and alarm bells were really ringing, I needed to know what he knew for the safety of me and the kids.’

In one horrifying incident, her cat was found dead and its corpse was dug up twice – although Lorraine does not know for sure if Salih was responsible.

Lorraine says after that Salih went quiet, but the contact began again in 2009, when she signed up for Facebook.

Over the next few years, he intermittently tried to contact her using the site, going through her niece’s friend list to find Lorraine after she changed her name.

She added: ‘There was a tirade of horrendous things after that – he was stopping me outside of work, forcing flowers on me, and I’d tell him to go away but there was nothing anyone could do.

‘For the next six weeks, my car tyres kept being let down, and at one point my car got moved into the middle of the road while I was working, but police thought I’d left the handbrake off.’

On July 4 this year, the stalking ‘came to a head’ and left Lorraine ‘terrified for her life’ after a dangerous car chase along Hastings’ busy coast road.

She was visiting her GP when she spotted Salih and, although he eventually sped off, he soon reappeared outside her home.

She added: ‘I was driving along the seafront and saw him on the inside lane and recognised him.

‘He was driving really dangerously but he sped off into the distance when I went into the doctors.

‘It was really frightening so I dropped my car at home and went to the police station, but he drove past me.

‘I screamed at two officers to stop him and I totally broke down, but they told me the station was closed and I had to go home and call 101.

‘The police acknowledged that he was a dodgy, suspicious character, so they put out a warrant for his arrest, but when they eventually found and questioned him he was released.

‘I told them they were mad for releasing him and that I was terrified for my life but they said they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.’

Lorraine became so terrified of Salih she wrote to MP Amber Rudd, begging for help, who she says contacted police to have the case ‘dealt with properly’.

Another warrant was issued and two weeks later, Salih was arrested and charged after admitting stalking the mum.

Salih was jailed for four years – and slapped with a protection order upon his release – when he appeared at Hove Crown Court on October 10.

Lorraine said he admitted to ‘just about everything’ and said he took 10 years of her life.

Police defended their actions.

PC Jenna Boyd, from Surrey Police, said; “This woman has endured a gradually escalating campaign of systematic stalking by Salih.

“The experience left her terrified for the safety of both herself and her family.

She added: ‘We hope that the sentence and the Restraining Order will give Salih a dose of reality, and that the victim will now be able to move on with her life without fear of his presence in it.’