A doctor has been jailed for 13 months for a three-month stalking campaign against TV explorer and documentary-maker Levison Wood that left him so fearful he decided to sell his home.
Fiza Jabeen, 36, from Harborne in Birmingham, began sending what were described as “explicit and unpleasant” messages to the explorer on his Instagram and Twitter accounts in April of this year.
She also began obsessively contacting the former paratrooper’s friends, family and his ex-partner on social media and by email despite being handed a restraining order.
Jabeen, previously a paediatrician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, was eventually taken into custody after travelling to Mr Wood’s home in Richmond.
Kingston Crown Court heard she had intercepted the celebrity as he was walking his dog in nearby Bushy Park and asked if she could come to his house for a cup of tea and to use the internet.
Mr Wood made a name for himself through his documentaries and books about his epic hitchhiking journeys spanning several continents.
Most recently he appeared in the Channel 4 series Walking With Elephants, which saw him follow on foot the largest annual migration of Botswana’s elephants on their 650-mile journey.
Jabeen admitted one offence of harassment and an offence of stalking at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on July 15.
During her campaign, Mr Wood, who is originally from Staffordshire, complained on social media about the abuse he was receiving from Jabeen and revealed he had contacted West Midlands Police after she threatened his parents.
On June 9, Jabeen was made the subject of a restraining order from Birmingham & Solihull Magistrates’ Court banning her from contacting Mr Wood.
But she breached the order only a month later after attending Mr Wood’s home near Hampton Court Palace on July 10 after locating his address on Companies House.
In a statement, Mr Wood said he felt he was “constantly looking over his shoulder” and he was concerned for both his own and his family’s safety as a result of Jabeen’s actions.
He continued: “By her own admission she is obsessed and her actions demonstrate that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.”
Mr Wood said he has put his Grade II listed house up for sale – which has featured in several interior design magazines – so that Jabeen cannot track him down again.
Jailing Jabeen for 13 months, Judge Georgina Kent said: “In essence, Mr Levison Wood is someone who has a high media profile.
“From April of this year you were contacting him on social media and some of that contact was explicit and unpleasant.”
She continued: “Stalking has an extremely detrimental impact on the victims, their family and friends, their mental wellbeing and their ability to get on with their lives without fear that someone is going to pop up at any time and cause them harm or embarrassment.”
Fiona Dunkley, for Jabeen, told the court that despite having a successful career, her client had been brought up as a devout Muslim and had no experience of male relationships.
“She describes her interaction with men as being very teenage-like and her reaction to the complainant as being like a teenage crush,” she said.
“She doesn’t really know how to control her emotions, having never had an emotional interaction with a man.”
Ms Dunkley added that Jabeen had given up work in late 2019 to care for her terminally-ill mother who passed away in March this year.
Since she has been in prison, Jabeen has refused contact with her family, the court heard.
