The brother of Simple Minds lead singer Jim Kerr has been jailed for four years after a jury convicted him of stalking a nurse for a second time.
Paul Kerr, 59, formerly of Warwick Mount, in Montague Street, Brighton, carried out a persistent campaign from his prison cell in breach of a restraining order, targeting the same victim.
He meted out distress and terror for years, having fallen out with someone he’d never met over a comment about the band’s music on Facebook, a court was told.
Kerr was serving a nine-year sentence after a two-year campaign of harassment which also landed him with a restraining order. To read about the previous case, click here.
He will now start a fresh four-year term after writing a series of letters to the police and NHS as he tried to have the same victim, John Fagan, sacked or arrested.
Stephen Hopper, prosecuting, said that Kerr wrote to the former chief executive of the NHS, Sir Simon Stevens, and the former Chief Constable of Sussex, Giles York, among others.
At Lewes Crown Court, Mr Hopper said that Kerr falsely accused Mr Fagan, 55, of being a molester, paedophile and child rapist who neglected his patients.
And he sent the first letter just three days after being jailed in January 2020. Mr Hopper said: “The letters are a continuation of the stalking.”
Judge Stephen Mooney said that Kerr was banned from contacting Mr Fagan and two others but, in sending the letters, “he tried to get others to do his dirty work.”
The letters and Kerr’s defence that his claims were true were in fact “a colossal distortion of the truth”, the judge said, “like your approach to much of this trial. The truth to you is a slippery concept.”
After the jury convicted Kerr, the judge told them that he had previously stalked others including a former partner and set fire to someone’s property after a disagreement. In another case, Kerr had burgled and attacked someone he had taken against.
Kerr told the court that he was bipolar but the judge said: “That is no excuse for meting out the form of cruel behaviour to others that you have done. I fall short of characterising you as evil.”
Judge Mooney said that Kerr had been cunning in try to find a way around the restraining order to resume his campaign of stalking and harassment against Mr Fagan, adding: “You sought to ruin his life again.”
He said: “You must be punished for that and people must be protected. You need to be carefully monitored.
“The fear and distress that you mete out to other people must end. You cannot do this sort of thing again.”
Outside court, Mr Fagan, 55, whose wife Julie, 56, was previously the target of a rape threat by Kerr, said: “It’s been a nightmare and the nightmare has continued.
“When he was sent to prison, we thought we’d get some respite but he didn’t stop. How is he allowed to do this from his prison cell?”
The judge imposed a fresh restraining order, banning Kerr from contacting Mr and Mrs Fagan, directly or indirectly, and from writing about them to anyone else.
