A woman was left feeling sick and distressed after she was bombarded with sexually explicit phone calls from a stalker.

Gary Young, 38, started plaguing his victim with calls after visiting her house to give her a quote for a carpet cleaning job.

Magistrates heard Young, of Larch Close, Hersden, subjected the woman to the three-week ordeal in October last year.

The court was told Young had visited her home in Fulham, London, to give a quote for the job and then made repeated calls to her from an unidentified number – eight of them in one hour.

Prosecutor Ramesh Patel said: “The victim was contacted in October last year by a man calling himself Gary who was following-up on a carpet cleaning inquiry she had made two months earlier.

Following this she began receiving a series of phone calls of a sexually explicit nature from an unknown phone number.”

“She felt distressed, upset and sick. She went into her toilet cubicle at work to cry” - Prosecutor Ramesh Patel

The caller said she was gorgeous and he wanted sex with her, but the victim was unaware he was the man she had been speaking to about her carpets.

It was only when Young ended one phone call with the words “thank you darling” that she realised who her stalker was.

Mr Patel said: “She felt distressed, upset and sick. She went into her toilet cubicle at work to cry.”

The woman contacted police, who persuaded her to make one more call to Young to help identify him as the mystery caller.

When arrested he denied having anything to do with the calls.

But on Friday he told magistrates in Hammersmith: “I’m totally embarrassed by the situation. I have not done it before and I won’t do it again.”

Young pleaded guilty to communicating indecent and offensive messages between October 16 and November 9.

Deputy District Judge Malcolm Dodds told him: “This was disgraceful behaviour, very upsetting, unprovoked and the last thing a woman needs.

"Not just women, in fact everybody, needs protection from that.”

The court heard Young is undergoing counselling for an alcohol problem and is his father’s carer.

He was sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years.

He was placed on probation for 18 months and ordered to pay £100 compensation to his victim and £85 costs.

He was given an 18-month exclusion requirement, banning him from contacting his victim or visiting her home.

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