A stalker who set up a camera in his wife’s alarm clock and paid another man to spy on her has been jailed for more than a year.
Auchterarder man Scott Ennis was sentenced to 16 months behind bars and issued with a non-harassment order on Tuesday, after a campaign of stalking which spanned four years.
50-year-old Ennis was convicted at Perth Sheriff Court in April, having taken extreme measures to try to find out if his wife Louisa was having an affair.
‘Gaslighting’
Scott Ennis installed covert monitoring devices at his Perthshire home, taped his wife’s work conversations and paid one of his own workers to shadow her.
Ennis had gifted his wife an alarm clock with a camera installed inside and had bugged her desk at her workplace, which she shared with him and the man he suspected of having a relationship with her.
The campaign began ten years into his marriage and eventually, after his four-year secret stalking campaign unravelled, his relationship crumbled.
Sheriff Wood told Ennis his actions had caused his now ex-wife “a great deal of anxiety” and he had no option but jail him for his “despicable” campaign.
He also said to father-of-two Ennis that he had been “gaslighting” his former partner.
“It beggars belief that you would have done that to your wife.
“Even when you were confronted, you denied that you were spying on her.”
Camera in bedside alarm clock
Ennis, of Auchterarder, began spying on his wife Louisa when he suspected she was cheating on him with David Welsh, a partner in his used car business Roundal Group in Tullibardine.
His victim had no idea what was going on until she spotted a mystery device showing up on her wi-fi router and discovered it was her husband’s spy camera.
She realised live footage of their bedroom was being streamed from a bedside digital alarm clock her husband had given her as a gift and set up himself.
Ennis was also using mobile phone technology to covertly track his wife’s movements as his secret stalking campaign ran from January 1 2015 until August 2 2019.
Fiscal depute Gail Russell told the court the decade-long marriage was failing and Mrs Ennis did start a new relationship with Mr Welsh in 2019, after leaving her husband.
The court previously heard Ennis’ employee Adam Horton had come forward to admit the part he had played in the spying campaign because he was ashamed of what he had agreed to do.
Mr Horton was sent in a van to take video and check her home address, as well as monitor her phone number and WhatsApp activity.
‘Extreme jealousy’
Ennis’ defence solicitor Ryan Sloan told the court Ennis felt regret, remorse and shame and had been struggling to come to terms with his failing marriage when he began his stealthy intrusions.
“He was a man struggling to cope with the gradual decline of his marriage.
“It had clearly driven him to a state of extreme jealousy.”
Mr Sloan explained it had never been Ennis’ intention for his wife to discover his “covert” clandestine equipment.
Ennis admitted installing a covert camera and a microphone recording device to watch and listen to his wife’s movements and conversations without her knowledge, as well as to tracking her using iPhone software, moving items in her garden, and getting his employee to walk past her home to record her in the company of Mr Welsh.
