A SINGLE mum stalked by a York policeman believes her nightmare is far from over.

Joanne Edwards, 35, said she did not think a community punishment order would do anything to stop her former lover, David Boag, from continuing his campaign of stalking.

Ms Edwards, who lives with her seven-year-old daughter in Haxby, near York, said the punishment of 200 hours community punishment, put in place by Harrogate magistrates court yesterday, was not enough.

"I'd have been far happier if they'd have said to David go to prison or agree to go and see a psychiatrist and have an assessment or something, because nothing the court has imposed has got to the root of the problem," said Ms Edwards.

"I don't think he's well. I just don't think he feels he's done anything wrong at all throughout the whole thing, he's just got no regard for me, my daughter or any of the other people he's dragged through this." Magistrates at Harrogate yesterday made a 12-month community order requiring Boag, 45, to complete 200 hours of unpaid work, and said a previous two-year restraining order would continue in force.

But Ms Edwards, who is on anti-depressants and is scared to answer her door at night, said: "I think all along the problem has been that the magistrates have been very wary of giving a police officer too severe a punishment.

"But the only reason I have felt safe the last few months is because he has been bailed out of the county and away from York, now that no longer applies."

Ms Edwards, who now works at Haxby and New Earswick Adult Training Centre, went on to describe how in the months since she split up with Boag she started a relationship with school teacher Tim Hainsworth.

This was the trigger for Boag to subject her to more than 150 silent phone calls forcing her to change her phone number.

She said Boag had sat outside her house day and night and on one occasion came round when her daughter was in bed upstairs and shouted and banged on the doors and windows demanding to be let in.

On another occasion, in August, he followed her and her daughter in her car, tail-gating them round the village. Her daughter, as the only witness, corroborated the story in taped evidence to the police.

She said: "All along I have tried not to get him in to trouble.

"At first I contacted his line manager, who I knew through working at the police, and things stopped for about a week and then he started up again. Eventually he got an official warning and it went on from there really.

"Throughout this the police have been fantastic and they have really helped me."

Updated: 11:42 Tuesday, December 06, 2005