A MANAGER at a Dunfermline charity shop said she was “petrified” by the stalking behaviour of a former volunteer there.

She said she was asked repeatedly to go out by Peter Wilson.

However, after a trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, there was a verdict of not guilty.

In the dock was Wilson, 47, of Restalrig Road, Edinburgh.

It was alleged that on various occasions between August 1 and October 20, 2017, at the Debra charity shop, Bridge Street, Wilson engaged in a course of stalking conduct towards Pamela Carnegie, acted aggressively repeatedly and shouted at her, asked her repeatedly to go out with him, offered repeatedly to walk her home, refused repeatedly to work with other members of staff, failed to attend work when she was not there and left a letter at the shop addressed to her.

Ms Carnegie, 33, was manager at the shop when Wilson began working as a volunteer there.

She told the court he was a good worker but after a period of working there he told her he had feelings for her.

“He said he’d been in love with me from the start,” she told the court from behind a screen.

“After that, I told him we couldn’t work together. He could work at the shop but not when I was there. He wasn’t very happy about that.”

She claimed that Wilson had asked her out on several occasions and kept offering to walk her from work even though she was meeting her partner.

She told the court Wilson later left a letter addressed to her at the shop in which he apologised for his behaviour and asked if they could work together again.

The witness said that after Wilson stopped working at the shop, she would often see him walking past there and he would sometimes go in.

She said he became “petrified” because she was always seeing him hanging about in the street and sometimes in the queue behind her when she went to get food at lunchtime.

However, at the end of the Crown case, there was a defence motion of no case to answer.

This was upheld by Sheriff Charles Macnair and Wilson was acquitted.