Jeremy Vine and ‘stalker who stole his name’

Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine has told how he felt he was being stalked for months by a charity campaigner who took his surname.

The talk show host said he was regularly followed by Alida O'Reilly, who changed her name to "Jackie Vine" and posted a mocked-up photo of the pair together on her MySpace page.

Vine first encountered the

28-year-old single mother in May when she asked him for directions as he left the studios next to Broadcasting House. She then started following him.

Later, her bizarre behaviour was said to include repeatedly trailing him to the Tube station as he headed home and staring through the window of a sandwich bar he visited.

Vine also became concerned at the unpleasant tone of her comments on Twitter, with one reading: "If you see Jeremy Vine knock him out."

He contacted police after discovering that a "campaign to clear Alida O'Reilly — accused of harassing DJs at Radio Jackie", a south-west London station, centred on the same woman.

O'Reilly faces being issued with a restraining order at Kingston magistrates court today, in a case which also involves Radio Jackie presenters.

At an earlier hearing she was reportedly found to have harassed a presenter at the independent station.

"Obviously she has got some serious problems and I hope she sorts them out," Vine said.

"It started off being friendly then it got strange and then it got threatening and nasty. I then became aware of what happened at Radio Jackie and realised it could develop into something more serious.

"I was getting to the point where I would come out of Radio 2 and think, Is this woman out there and if I go and have a sandwich is she going to follow me and stand outside the sandwich bar staring in?' It was not very pleasant."