April 2015 Dad who hid in bushes to leer at schoolgirls during seven-month stalking nightmare A stalker terrorised schoolgirl victims by hiding in bushes and alleyways so he could stare at the youngsters on their way to and from school Victims lived in fear of Robert Emmerson who also followed them, exposed himself, or fiddled with his trousers during the bizarre, seven-month long harassment campaign. The 30-year-old dad-of-one, of Fern Bank Drive, Wythenshawe, has now been banned from a number of streets in Baguley and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register after being convicted of aggravated stalking, two charges of stalking and two charges of exposure. He denied all the offences and still maintains his innocence. The four victims, aged 14 and 15, were ‘frightened on a regular basis’ by the piercing glare of Emmerson, who worked for a bargain store in Wythenshawe at the time, but has since been let go. Robert Emmerson hid in bushes and alleyways to stalk the girls The girls told court that from November 2012 he lay in wait along the route they took to school, staring at them as he appeared to urinate against a wall, staring at them as he followed them, and even hiding in bushes or behind trees so that he could stare at them. He exposed himself to two of the victims – one of whom was left ‘seriously upset’ by her ordeal. The court also heard that he would unzip and lower his trousers at schoolgirls, sometimes ‘tutting’ at them as they went past. His defence said that Emmerson ‘would not cope easily with the rigours of prison’. Sentencing him to two years, suspended for 18 months, with 200 hours unpaid work, Judge Martin Steiger QC made Emmerson subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order banning him from Butcher Lane, Sandy Lane, Timpson Road and Churchstoke Walk, Wythenshawe.