Paige Rolland
In 2014, Paige Rolland was an 18 year old student nurse from Fife, Scotland.
When she wasn’t busy with her studies, Paige liked to escape through reading; often finding herself engrossed in fantasy worlds surrounded by fairy-tale and romance. It would be around this time when Paige stumbled upon a newly published book, named ‘The World Rose’.
The book featured around a fictional character named ‘Ella Tundra’ facing many obstacles on her quest for true love; a story heavily influenced by the Rose flower and the play-on-words implication that “the world rose up” as stated by its author.
The story was written by author, Richard Brittain — a 28 year old man from Bedford, UK.
Richard had first come into the spotlight in 2006 during his time as a contestant on ‘Countdown’; a British game show involving word and mathematical tasks. He went on to win the show and was crowned champion.
He also appeared on Channel 5 gameshow Brain Teaser in January 2007, winning £1,500.
Unknown at the time however, was that Richard was not this seemingly intelligent and promising young man that he portrayed. In fact, he had a dark and sinister side that would only come to light in the years that followed.
In 2012, Richard had began stalking a fellow university classmate, named Ella Durant. Richard had asked Ella if she wanted to be on his team for University Challenge — she later received a Valentine’s card from Richard who took her address from the University Challenge application form she submitted.
Ella began noticing that Richard was commenting on a lot of her Facebook posts — and regularly turning up at the bar where she worked.
It grew steadily worse, to the point Richard would call her and leave voicemails expressing his love — something he later openly admitted to in his blog.
Rather than hiding in the shadows, Richard openly wrote about his growing obsession with Ella in an online blog named ‘The Benevolent Stalker’.
“When it became clear that I had no chance with her, my behaviour became increasingly erratic,” he openly admitted in the blog, which has since been deleted.
He added: “I sent a few love letters through the post, rose-themed cards containing poetry and drawings. I also left messages on her phone.”
After Ella told the university, Richard was banned from contacting her — but when it failed to stop him, Ella reported him to the police.
The stalking went on for several more months, until Ella eventually moved from London to Glasgow — at which point, Richard appeared to have gone quiet.
However, months later she received a social media message from him, asking her to read his self-published novel, The World Rose, a fairy-tale in which Ella was portrayed as a princess.
Not long after that, she spotted him across the street from her. He’d tracked her down, over 400 miles across the country.
Richard himself detailed the encounter in his blog, revealing how he had hoped to persuade her to go away with him — and for them to pretend he had kidnapped her, all to make them both famous.
“WE would go into the hills and camp out for a few days while the nation searched. I had brought the necessary supplies.”
His plan to ‘fake her kidnapping’ in order to make them both famous was eventually thwarted when the terrified woman called the police.
Finally accepting defeat, Richard returned to London.
Meanwhile, after reading his book, Paige Rolland had been less than impressed with the writing and the grammatical errors that the book had contained so had taken to the reading app ‘Goodreads’ to leave a review of the book.
Goodreads allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogues and reading lists. They can also create their own groups of book suggestions, surveys, polls, blogs, and discussions.
Paige did not leave feedback on the book but had given it a rating of one-star; the lowest review a person can offer on a book.
This did not go unnoticed by the author; however Paige could never have imagined what her review would lead to…
Filled with rage, Richard had decided that he was not going to let Paige get away with her criticism of his book.
He searched her up on Facebook using the name on her Goodreads account. Paige had her full details added to her profile, including her hometown of Glenrothes, Fife in Scotland and also the Asda in which she was an employee. Richard then set out on the 400 mile trip to Scotland in search of the teen who had dared to leave negative feedback on his writing.
On October 3rd 2014, Richard arrived in Fife and headed over to the Asda Supermarket where Paige was indeed working that day.
After scoping out the store, Richard found Paige. Consumed by anger and a need for revenge, Richard grabbed a bottle of white wine from the alcohol section and headed to the cereal aisle where Paige had been restocking the bottom shelves.
He then walked up behind the unsuspecting girl and slammed the bottle as hard as he could against the petite teenager’s skull before fleeing.
The emergency services were called as Paige had suffered a horrific head injury — a gaping wound that required stitches.
Police wasted no time in tracking down Richard Brittain.
Using cell masts Richard’s phone was traced as having been in Glenrothes, North Berwick and London the following day. He was traced by the police and his house was searched which revealed travel documents and evidence he had been in Glasgow on an earlier date.
He was soon arrested and charged with the assault of Paige and the stalking of Ella.
Richard’s trial took place in November 2015. He plead guilty to both charges and was sentenced to 30 months in jail.
He was released in March 2017 and placed on an indefinite non-harassment order.
This unfortunately would not be the last that Paige would hear from her attacker. Despite being subject to an indefinite non-harassment order, Richard sent a hand-written note to Paige’s home address claiming that nothing was real “except their love” and that he would love her “forever”.
Richard also referred to Paige as his “Scottish thistle” before signing off “This page is torn because we are torn without each other.”
Paige had since moved to a secret address for her safety.
She now suffers from severe anxiety, takes medication for her mental health issues and has dropped out of university since the attack.
She said: “I live in fear every day he’s going to track me down again.”
Richard also sent Paige a private Facebook message following his release.
“I dreamed of you last night. Are you going to send me back to prison?” he wrote.
“How is the nursing degree going? I was quite surprised they revealed such information about you in court. I was tempted to get a bus ticket to Dundee and come visit you but I thought that might look weird. Any chance we could just become friends actually? We could keep our communications secret like we did in last night’s dream.”
Richard later sent a follow up message begging Paige not to tell anyone about the first message he had sent. He also penned numerous sick poems about her on his blog, which has since been deleted.
One mentions a “Scotch tartan queen”, adding: “In the cereal aisle we made contact with one another.”
When Paige, received the letter she contacted Police, however the decision was made by prosecutors not to proceed with charges due to the stalker’s mental health.
Despite the brutal nature of the attack and the mental issues she is dealing with, Paige was refused criminal injury compensation because she suffered no long term physical effects following the attack.
Recalling the details of the attack, Paige described:
“At first, I thought that maybe I’d hit my head off the shelf and, as everything started to spin and go black, I wondered how I could be so stupid as to hit my head so hard. My vision was black and my hearing was muffled. I did not pass out and turned and put my hands out to lower myself to the floor gently, which is something my mother has always taught me to do should I think I’m going to pass out. I heard the tinkle of a bottle on the floor and I thought that something had fallen on me. Blood was covering my hands and dripping down my arms. Without the pressure on my head, the blood spread down my hair and the back of my neck. Before I went into shock for the first time, a colleague pressed towels to my head and someone covered me with a heavy jacket to try and stop it from happening. I heard one customer say to my colleague that someone had come from behind me, hit me with a wine bottle and walked away.”
Today, Richard Brittain is a free man. It is clear that his time in jail did not rehabilitate him. He appears to be a repeat-offender who does not care for the consequences of his actions, nor the repercussions that he may face.
We can only hope that he does not harm anyone else.
Comments
Post a Comment