Police officer's stalking shame.

Byline: By Amy Cartmell

A police officer is fighting to clear his name after he was convicted of stalking his ex-girlfriend.

PC Michael Curry has been suspended from duty pending his appeal at Newcastle Crown Court.

The Northumbria police officer allegedly harassed his former partner Kathleen Mossman for eight months, following the breakdown of their five-year relationship.

During that time the father-of-two was registered with an internet dating agency.

It was claimed during his trial he tracked down Ms Mossman to a cottage in the Lake District where she was on a romantic break.

On other occasions it was alleged he followed her to a hotel in Newcastle, spied on her while hiding behind parked cars and barricaded himself in their former home.

Ms Mossman told the court she was left "in absolute fear of Michael Curry and of what he would do to me."

Curry, 42, of Fairfields, Alnwick, had denied a charge of harassment between December 2002 and August 2003.

He was convicted following a three-day trial at the town's magistrates court last month and was given a 12 month conditional discharge.

He was also banned from contacting Miss Mossman, her daughter, or her new partner Richard Turner for a year.

A police spokesman said: "Michael Curry is suspended from his duty at South East Northumberland area command following his conviction and he is on full pay."

Curry is being supported by the Police Federation, the union for rank and file officers, although he has funded his defence himself.

Alan Arkley, chair of the joint branch board for Northumbria Police Federation said: "We are providing support in the problems he has at the present time. Until the appeal has been heard and a decision made we cannot comment."

Curry described himself on an internet dating service as "attractive, fun-loving and hard-working."

He said his interests included pop music, travelling and computers and he said he enjoyed "being out in a crowd, at home with a glass of wine or a mountainside alone."

Curry started an affair with Ms Mossman in 1997, when she left her husband. He left his wife in early 2000 and they bought a house in Allerburn Lea, Alnwick, in May 2001 but the relationship ran into difficulties.

Miss Mossman claimed she ended the relationship after Christmas 2002 but that Curry did not move out of their home until five months later.

She has said that he became "increasingly controlling and manipulative."

Her partner Mr Turner told the court they were terrified when Curry had banged on the door of their Lake District cottage in the middle of the night and shouted through the letter box.

Miss Mossman has said she has suffered from poor sleep, has been prescribed sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

She has had to take unpaid sick-leave from her job as a substance misuse co-ordinator for the youth offenders' team in Gateshead.

Curry has claimed things only started to go wrong last March when Ms Mossman told him she was seeing someone else. He said he had driven out to surprise her in the Lake District after she said she was there on her own.

Curry claimed that a meeting on Newcastle Quayside was a coincidence and denied barricading himself in their former home.

He has said that he had emailed and texted Miss Mossman to sort out their finances, including a pounds 14,000 loan he had taken out to clear their credit card debts.

It took magistrates over three hours to return a guilty verdict.

The chairman said Curry was "a person who was obsessive and persistent in his efforts to find Miss Mossman."

He said: "We accept this was an emotional response to circumstances you found yourself in rather than a deliberate malicious course of action."

The appeal will be heard at Newcastle Crown Court . When the Chronicle contacted Curry at his home he did not want to comment on the case.