THERE were moments, admits Gail Nichol-Andrews, when the terror of being stalked by a neighbour became too much for her. “The thoughts were fleeting, but they were there – I just wanted to be out of it,” she says.

“I didn’t want to die, I wanted to live. But sometimes, just for a passing moment or two, I just wondered – would it be best if I wasn’t here?

“And then I’d stop and think – what would that do to my husband? To my boys?”

She shakes her head. “I have used all my skills, all my resilience, to cope with the last 10 years,” she says. “Other people may not be as strong. I can understand why people feel they can’t go on any more – or why they might die of fright. It is terrifying.

“I don’t want to be in the newspapers, on the television – I just want to live a normal life.

“But the story of what happened to me is so awful, it has to be told.”

Last week, Highland businessman Ernst Robberts, who owns land and holiday lodges near Invergordon, was found guilty of engaging in a course of conduct which caused Mrs Nichol-Andrews fear or alarm by repeatedly loitering outside her home and looking inside, and installing CCTV to monitor her movements along an access track.

Mrs Nichol-Andrews had previously told Tain Sheriff Court that Robberts parked his car outside her home and stared inside between 40 and 50 times in 2011.

Sheriff Janys Scott QC said his actions had “caused enormous distress” to Mrs Nichol-Andrews and her family and warned him to stop the conduct.

Robberts’ own sister, Mieke Horsburgh, gave evidence that her brother had once told a family friend how he “winds up” the lady in the cottage “when there is no one around” and that she “goes mental.”

Now Mrs Nichol-Andrews and leading anti-stalking campaigners have spoken out about the fine, claiming it does not go far enough.

“What kind of message does this send out to people who are being stalked?” said Mrs Nichol-Andrews. “Of course I’m pleased the verdict was guilty, but £2000 is laughable. It’s nothing to him.”

Social work manager Mrs Nichol-Andrews, 57, moved to Tullich Muir, near Invergordon, from Cheshire in 2008 with her husband Hugh, 66 and son Ross, who was then 16. The couple have two older sons, Paul and Tim.

“This was our dream retirement home, our idyllic cottage in a forest,” she explains. “We were overjoyed to find this little house, in such a beautiful, peaceful setting.

“Hugh was retiring from the motors trade, I had been relocated to Highland Council, and everything was perfect. We felt so lucky.”

Mrs Nichol-Andrews recalls the moment everything changed.

“Mr Robberts came to our house, angry about our dog, which he said had fouled his garden,” she says. “I tried to calm things down, to reason with him. It was the first time I’d ever met him. He invited my husband and I to his house for drinks and we went, thinking the situation had been defused.

“But after that, everything got worse.”

Mrs Nichol-Andrews adds: “When you’re being stalked, at first you might not realise that’s what is actually happening.

“The cameras going up, him sitting outside my house in his silver pick-up, just staring in; the confrontations with my husband, my sons – things didn’t make sense. I was so confused. It felt like he was trying to drive us from our home.”

She shudders. “I still feel sick when I see a silver pick-up. I still get that spike of fear in my heart.”

Despite calling the police on numerous occasions, Mrs Nichol-Andrews says her fears were ignored until she contacted Action Against Stalking, the campaigning charity set up by Ann Moulds.

Mrs Moulds explains: “Gail’s story is nothing short of horrific.

“This man boasted about what he was doing. He installed CCTV to monitor Gail and her family.

“Unfortunately, for a long time the police failed to recognise these behaviours as stalking and Gail was left vulnerable and unsupported with nowhere to turn.

“The stress of it all has impacted on Gail’s health. She contacted AAS asking for assistance and we managed to bring this to the attention of a senior Police Scotland official who requested an overview of the case.

“Thanks to this intervention Gail’s stalker was finally arrested and prosecuted and has since been found guilty.”

Mrs Nichol-Andrews adds: “I don’t really blame the police, because they didn’t know what they are looking at. There is no training. They thought this was just a neighbourly dispute.

“There’s just not enough joined up thinking.

“Ann and Action Against Stalking have been a huge help. Finally, someone was listening and understanding just how serious the whole situation was.

“It took a long time for me to be heard but once I was, things did get better.

She pauses. “And now, I just think – how the hell has it been allowed to go on for so long?”

Two years ago, Mrs Nichol-Andrews suffered a stroke.

“It was the lowest point,” she recalls, fighting back tears.

“That day had been awful. I had called the police twice to report that Mr Robberts was stalking me, but I had actually said to them not to bother coming out unless they were prepared to see it as stalking, and as part of the bigger picture. I was at the end of my tether.

“Later on, the police appeared – but it was on the basis of a phone call they had received from the Robberts who were threatening all sorts of legal action over a bush they claimed we had cut and shouldn’t have.

“Ten minutes after they left I was so upset. I started to feel unwell, and my husband said my face had drooped on one side.”

She adds: “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. Doctors diagnosed a mild stroke, so I was lucky. I could have died.”

While no evidence was given in court about the stroke, Mrs Nichol-Andrews wonders if her ill-health was a direct result of the stalking campaign.

“I was worn down by the constant pressure,” she says, simply. “It’s like an illness. I’d see him sitting outside or driving past and I’d start to shake, violently.

“The cameras monitored my every movement.

“I used to hide under a blanket in the back of the car when we went out, so he wouldn’t know whether I was in or out.”

As her own health deteriorated, Mrs Nichol-Andrews became fearful about the effects of the stalking campaign on her husband and sons.

“Hugh is a gentle man, not aggressive in the slightest, and I know it was hard for him to see what I was going through,” she says, quietly.

“He told me afterwards he thought he had lost me at one point.

“Ross was also very badly affected by what was happening to me – it was hard for him to watch his mother going through something like this. Can you imagine what that did to a teenager?

“My other sons came to visit, and couldn’t believe it when they saw the cameras. Finally they understood that everything I was telling them on the phone was real.”

Her voice falters.

“All I could think was – is this how we are going to end our lives together?” she says. “Are these the last memories our family will have of us? This long, horrible fight, writing letters, investigating, talking to the police? Who wants to spend their lives doing that?

“We are decent people, who have worked hard all our lives for what we have.

“Mr Robberts tried hard to paint the picture of a neighbourly dispute, a fight about access, but we are not the neighbours from hell. He is.

“By speaking out, I want to raise awareness of what stalking is and what it can do to people.

“He has ruined many years of our lives, but I won’t let him take our dreams from us.”