A serial stalker who sent letters to Emily Maitlis and her parents from behind bars was jailed this morning for five years.
Vines – who had briefly become friends with Ms Maitlis while they were both students at Cambridge University in 1990 – has repeatedly breached orders banning him from contacting the journalist and broadcaster and was in prison for similar offences.
Judge Mark Watson told a court Vines had shown ‘utter coptempt’ for a restraining order and added: ‘It is a tragedy that I once again have to deal with Mr Vines for breaching the restraining order imposed to stop him having contact with Emily Maitlis and her family.
‘His obsession with Emily Maitlis has tortured him without release.’
Vines was last month found guilty of breaching a restraining order not to contact the former BBC Newsnight host or her parents Marion and Peter Maitlis by posting letters whilst in prison to all three between May 2023 and February 2024.
A jury at Nottingham Crown Court took less than an hour to unanimously convict Vines after a trial in which he represented himself.
The trial was told how the prisoner addressed letters to the The News Agents podcast host and her parents which breached a restraining order, including claims she had been ‘scornful’ to him during their friendship at university.
Jurors were told that in a letter written to Ms Maitlis, the defendant claimed he ‘regularly’ suffers depression because their friendship ended, and has done for 30 years.
A jury heard how the defendant sent envelopes, sometimes containing more than one letter, addressed to the trio, which were intercepted by prison staff at HMP Lowdham Grange in Nottinghamshire.
Prosecutor Fergus Malone read aloud letters to the court, posted by Vines through the prison mailing system, which included him saying he was ‘distraught’ about the friendship ending, three months after he told Ms Maitlis he loved her, during their time at university.
In July 2023 Vines wrote: ‘I took the audacity of writing to you despite the restraining order because I’m still distraught about what took place between us in 1990.
‘I regularly suffer depression over it and have for 30 years. I admit I’m not sure why I suffer so, but suffer I do.’
In a letter addressed to Ms Maitlis’s mother in May of that year, Vines had described Ms Maitlis as ‘offish and scornful’, the trial heard.
The restraining order was put in place in September 2022 when Vines was jailed for eight years for attempting to breach a previous restraining order for the 20th time.
Jurors in that case were told that Vines had ‘systematically and with increasing frequency’ breached two separate restraining orders imposed on him in 2002 and 2009 – leading to seven separate prosecutions.
On that occasion Judge Watson described him as having a ‘tortured pre-occupation’ with former BBC Newsnight presenter and ‘an obsession’ with her which he has been unable to escape.
Vines was jailed for eight years in 2023 after bombarding the News Agents presenter with letters following a fixation that has spanned since the pair attended Cambridge University together in the 1990s.
Other celebrities who have suffered from stalkers in recent years include actress Claire Foy, broadcaster Isla Traquair and radio and TV star Jeremy Vine.
Ms Maitlis conducted the infamous Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew which led to the Duke of York stepping back from official public duties after being criticised for his unsympathetic tone and lack of remorse about his friendship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Last year she said she felt ’empathy’ for Vines because he is suffering from an ‘obsessional illness’.
She has also said that stalking needs to be renamed as it is too closely associated with glamour and celebrities, rather than mental health.
Ms Maitlis said we should re-frame how we look at such criminal behaviour and see it as an ‘obsessional illness’.
Speaking on the Desperately Seeking Wisdom podcast, she said: ‘Look, I think of (Edward Vines) as having kind of lost his whole life over this, quite frankly.
‘Of course I feel, I feel empathetic to that.
‘I think the trouble with stalking is that in our heads it sounds sort of celebrity related or glamorous – sort of dark streets and high heels – and most stalking has nothing to do with that.
‘It’s just to do with an obsessional illness in the head of the person and actually we’re getting much better at recognising mental health and all its myriad forms now.’
Ms Maitlis said she does not like the use of the word stalking, in general, and said it was time to consider a different term that focuses it being a medical illness.
She explained: ‘And I think we’ve got to find a different word for stalking, which is much more to do with his brain (not) working properly.
‘I know that you don’t just need a prison system. You need a psychiatric system.’
Ms Maitlis has previously told how Vines’ fixation with her has affected her relationship with husband Mark Gwynne.
Ms Maitlis said: ‘It has affected my relationship with my husband who is frustrated we cannot get to the bottom of the problem even though we have been tackling it through the courts and CPS for over twenty years and it has scared my children who thought the threat had gone way – albeit temporarily while he was behind bars.