A STALKER who couldn’t afford to travel to court was offered a “free trip” in the form of a warrant last week.

But solicitor Kelly Howe managed to persuade sheriff Pino Di Emidio to defer dealing with her client, Graham Parker, for several weeks instead.

The 56-year-old was due to be sentenced at Alloa Sheriff Court on Thursday, June 6, for three offences.

He was previously convicted of stalking his ex-partner by sending her emails requesting she contact him and threatening to harm himself.

He also sent her a letter and refused to leave her home after attending at her address in Clacks, all between August 4 and October 4 last year.

As well as that, Parker was caught with a knife in Clackmannan without a reasonable excuse on October 4, and breached his bail conditions between December and January this year.

In court on Thursday, Ms Howe explained that her client was currently staying in Bournemouth, and did not have the funds to travel to Alloa.

She said: “He has financial difficulties in relation to getting to court.

“He has tried to get financial assistance.”

She then said that Parker’s next benefit payment would come in on June 22, and asked for sentencing to be deferred until then.

In response, sheriff Pino Di Emidio said: “I suppose one way of looking at it is that a warrant would provide him with a free trip.”

However, that was rebuffed by Ms Howe, who claimed that suggestion had been tried once before.

She said: “Yes, but last time that free trip left him with no funds to get home.”

After some discussion, they both agreed there was no way of transferring responsibility for sentencing to a court in Bournemouth, or of dealing with the case in Parker’s absence.

Instead, sheriff Emidio chose to follow Ms Howe’s recommendation, and deferred sentencing Parker, of Westover road, until June 27.

He also intimated that he believed the offences would be best dealt with by way of a community disposal with an unpaid work element.