A WOMAN left the country to escape a stalker who sketched a gravestone with her name on it, a court was told yesterday.

Jane Tranter, 23, was a member of a Job Club working on her curriculum vitae when newcomer Gavin Smith, 28, grabbed it.

He memorised her address and phone number and asked her out, said Paul Newcombe, prosecuting.

She thought Smith was "rather forward", but after he gave her his telephone number she rang, agreeing to meet him in Darlington.

However, before she reached the meeting place she changed her mind, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Smith spotted her and repeatedly rang her home. Her father, who took three calls, told him that she no longer lived there. The family changed their phone number, said Mr Newcombe.

In September 1999, Smith sent a sympathy card and a letter stencilled In Loving Memory of Jane Tranter, with a flower-strewn grave with her name on it.

Mr Newcombe said: "She and her family have now moved back to Ireland following this conduct."

A psychiatrist said Smith needed help, not punishment, said Paul Cleasby, defending.

Smith of Starmer Crescent, Darlington, was put on probation for two years and ordered to attend a one-to-one offender's programme, after pleading guilty to pursuing a course of conduct which harassed another.