A DUNBAR man "incriminated himself" after he carried out a stalking campaign against a woman following an incident between their dogs.

David Page, 52, conducted a campaign of harassment against the woman and her family by filming them every time she took her dog out for a walk in Dunbar.

Page used a GoPro camera, a mobile phone and a long lens camera as he filmed the “terrified” woman on repeated occasions over a five-and-a-half year period.

The victim was forced to change her dog walking routine and routes but Page continued to find and follow her and silently film her movements.

But Page was caught out when he complained to the police about the woman’s husband shouting at him in the street and called in officers to look at the footage he had captured.

Page, of the town’s Castle Street, then incriminated himself after the officers spotted he had been recording the woman on many previous occasions.

Page was found guilty of engaging in a course of conduct that caused fear and alarm by repeatedly watching, following and filming the woman and members of her family in Dunbar between January 1, 2012, and October 8 last year following a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

He was also found guilty of a separate charge of using abusive language towards employees at East Lothian Council during a phone call on October 8 last year.

The stalking victim told the court that she was left "terrified" due to Page’s unpredictable behaviour and out of “fear of what he might do” to her or her family.

She said she felt “like his target” and was “constantly looking over my shoulder”.

She added the filming was “constant” and the “only place she felt safe was in her home”.

The woman was advised by police to carry an alarm and she bought a panic alarm off the internet and took it everywhere.

Page returned to court last Friday for sentencing, where he was ordered to stay away from the woman for the next four years after Sheriff Alistair Noble issued a non-harassment order.

Sheriff Noble deferred full sentence to January next year for Page to be of good behaviour and to keep to the conditions of a two-year ASBO which was recently imposed by East Lothian Council.

The sheriff said: “I will defer sentence for six months for you too be of good behaviour but I will make a non-harassment order today that will last for four years.

“You are prohibited from approaching, contacting, watching, following or filming, or pretending to film the woman.

“If you breach that order that will amount to a separate offence.”

Local police officer PC Sean Douglas confirmed the harassment started due to “an incident between their dogs which he wasn’t happy with”.

PC Douglas added: “From then on, whenever she saw him he would approach her, cross the street to walk past her and use a GoPro to record her.

“One one occasion she became aware he was walking behind her so she stopped so he would pass but he also stopped five metres behind her and began filming her.

“He would also stop and use his phone to give the impression he was filming her.

“This came to an end when both parties reported basically the same incident. The victim and her husband were in the car and he walked out in front of them.

“He reported to police that the husband had made a comment about him ‘being on the register’. But that helped us to prove he was recording them because he showed officers the footage.

“The footage showed he was already recording them before anything was said – he incriminated himself.

“She said it had been been going on for years since the incident with the dogs.”