Sentenced next month
A solicitor has been convicted of stalking after bombarding a court blogger with around 120 emails, voicemails and a birthday gift over a five-month period.
District Judge Towell found Andrew Jonathan Milne guilty of stalking without fear, concluding that his conduct towards Daniel Cloake, the legal blogger behind Mouse in the Court who reports on court proceedings, amounted to harassment. The conviction followed a trial last week at Stratford Magistrates’ Court.
The court heard that between March and August 2024, 63-year-old Milne sent approximately 124 separate communications to Cloake, including emails containing what the judge described as “aggressive threats of litigation and uninvited sexual innuendo”. He also left two voicemails on Cloake’s birthday, sent him a book as a gift, and was captured on doorbell camera footage outside Cloake’s home.
Cloake told the court that his only interaction with Milne had been polite exchanges at court hearings and attending two lunches at the Law Society. He said he had sent just one email to the solicitor, a brief “thanks” in response to a message about case timings. None of the remaining communications received any reply.
The Law Society Gazette reports that Milne claimed Cloake told him he was in love with him and that, in fact, it was Cloake who had been the stalker. The judge rejected the claim entirely.
As Cloake failed to respond, the judge found that Milne’s emails became “increasingly erratic”, with the solicitor resorting to threats of legal action in what the court considered an attempt to provoke a reply. His claim that the litigation threats were intended as a joke was dismissed as “not credible”.
The judge described Cloake’s silence in the face of the correspondence as a clear signal that the contact was unwelcome, calling the volume of communication “oppressive and unreasonable”. Cloake gave evidence that the experience left him feeling “unnerved, worried and scared”.
Milne, who qualified in 1986, is due to be sentenced at Thames Magistrates’ Court next month.