A RADIO presenter has told of her relief that "13 years of complete hell" at the hands of a psychotic stalker are finally over.

A judge has ruled that Mohammed Basharat Feroz must be detained indefinitely in a mental hospital after he threatened to put Gail Sayles in a wheelchair and throw acid in her face.

Mrs Sayles, news editor of Sunrise Radio, suffered 13 years of stalking and harassment from Feroz who had delusions that the radio station, based in Leeds Road, Little Germany, Bradford, was "a place of disrepute."

Feroz, 55, a former butcher, of Leeds Road, Thornbury, Bradford, appeared in the dock at Bradford Crown Court yesterday flanked by three staff at Lynfield Mount psychiatric hospital where he is securely detained.

Bespectacled Feroz, who wore a green anorak, sat quietly throughout the hearing.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Feroz had caused Mrs Sayles to be "trapped in a cycle of fear."

The paranoid schizophrenic escalated his stalking campaign between March 11 and May 30 last year.

He bombarded Mrs Sayles with phone calls that the judge said "threatened her life and limb".

Feroz was found to be mentally unfit to plead to a charge of stalking involving fear of violence but a jury found in November that he committed the acts alleged.

Judge Durham Hall said Feroz posed a serious danger to the public and to Sunrise Radio in particular.

The only alternative to a secure hospital order under The Mental Health Act would be a long prison sentence.

Dr Paul Bevan, a consultant forensic psychiatrist at Lynfield Mount, said Feroz had been successfully treated for his hallucinations but his delusions, including hearing voices, persisted and were entrenched.

Dr Bevan said Feroz imagined that Sunrise Radio was involved in some sort of conspiracy.

Feroz's barrister, Austin Newman, said that although the threats to Mrs Sayles were unpleasant, he made no attempt to carry them out. He had access to a payphone in hospital but had never tried to call the radio station.

Feroz's condition had stabilised but early last year he "suffered the blow of losing his mother" and stopped taking his medication.

His stalking of Mrs Sayles intensified and he threatened to blow up the radio station.

Judge Durham Hall said Feroz was not a bad man, but a poorly one.

"The victim, the editor of Sunrise Radio, has been subjected to years of very intense unhappiness at the hands, or rather the words, of Mr Feroz. There has been a life-altering, intensely frightening, series of verbal attacks," the judge said.

After the case, Mrs Sayles told the Telegraph & Argus: "I am just so glad that, after 13 years of complete hell, the court has believed me and acted, and I can now start a new life.

"There are so many women out there who have had to put up with this and who have felt absolutely helpless. Now, I feel free."

Mrs Sayles praised police for their investigation, saying: "They supported me every step of the way."