Lily Allen Stalker Was 'Planning To Murder A Celebrity'

UK artist Lily Allen has opened up about a "frightening" seven-year ordeal in which the singer was stalked and harassed by a man who who broke into her London flat and burnt her belongings. 

In an interview with the Observer, the 30-year-old recalled first encountering Alex Gray through his Twitter account, under the handle @lilyallenRIP, who claimed to have written her 2008 hit song, The Fear and it wasn't long before she started receiving letters and suicide threats. 

"He would drop off these letters at my record company, my management offices, my sister's shop, my flat," Allen said.

"It was freaking me out a bit and I'm not easily scared, so the fact I went to the police with the letters shows how serious I felt it was. Alarm bells were ringing. But I felt comforted by the fact that I was telling the police, I was keeping a record."

Allen went on to reveal that Gray had approached Allen's assistant and colleagues and an incident at one of her concerts persuaded her to again contact police.

"...I was on stage and someone holds up a banner saying, ‘I wrote The Fear’," Allen recalled.

When she finally received a call back from authorities she was told, "'Alex Gray is active again.' I had no idea what that meant. I did all my own digging, got my own lawyer, put measures in place to protect my family. I didn't even know what he looked like."

In October last year, the matter escalated further when Allen's house was broken into after she forgot to lock her back door. 

"I had had all sorts of metal shutters and locks on the doors, but I'd been cooking and burned a pan and opened the back door. I closed it but forgot to lock it when I went to bed," she said.

Asleep in her room with a friend and her children also asleep just down the hall, Allen said she was woken up late in the night by a loud banging noise on the wall. 

"I sat up and looked and the doorhandle was twisting round. This guy came steaming in and I didn't know who he was. I recoiled and he ripped the duvet off, calling me a ‘fucking bitch’ and yelling about where his dad is."

Allen is convinced that the man was carrying a knife and did not suspect another person would be in the room with her, who managed to force the intruder out of the house, while Allen rushed to check on her kids. 

"There was this second outside my kids' room when I was terrified to go in, in case of what I might find," Allen said. 

Police believe that the incident was simply a case of a drunken man entering the wrong house, however Allen refused to buy into the theory.

"For me, it was too much of a coincidence that the only night I had left the shutters up, this man came in. I believe he had been spending a lot of time out there in my garden, watching."

It was revealed that in Scotland, Gray's sister had reported him missing and that his mother had sent an email to police, believed to be written from Gray, which read that he was in London, planning to murder a celebrity — Allen believes she is that celebrity.

Furthermore, it is understood Gray carried a photograph of Allen dressed in hospital scrubs at a Halloween party in his pocket, as he believed the costume was a message to him.

After it was discovered Allen's handbag was missing, she said police's reluctance to accept the matter as stalking rather than burglary was disheartening. 

"For me, the burglary was like this insignificant thing compared to what he was doing to me and my life," she said.

"After about a week, I went out as I was due to DJ at an event. I hadn't had any contact from police, I presumed they were actively searching for him; it's now apparent to me that wasn’t the case. When I arrived home, my handbag was on the bonnet of my car outside my house. Burnt. Everything pulled out and cut up or burned and the bag burned.

“Every time I tried to talk to someone about it, it was like hitting a brick wall. You feel very disconnected and that makes you disconnected to people around you, too. It's difficult to articulate it when you have no definition, when the police are saying, ‘right, it’s burglary if you want this guy to get a prison sentence’, and you're thinking, ‘but I don’t give a shit about my handbag. What I give a shit about is a man who is saying he wants to put a knife through my face’.

"I wrote to the police and asked why they weren't using these letters going back to 2009, and then I got a short note saying they had been destroyed ‘according to police protocol’. No apology, no explanation."

The ordeal has understandably shaken Allen, who has since moved to a busier area of London. 

"I'm very aware of trying not to overdramatise what’s happened, I'm aware that some fears are irrational; I know he is in prison. If I hear a bang, every little noise makes me start. I see his face in people in the street. I've had to leave the flat I loved, move nearer a main road with lots of CCTV about.

"It was not special attention I looked for. It was reassurance and validation. The police made me feel like a nuisance, rather than a victim. I feel lucky I had resources to protect myself, I could move house, get a lawyer, but if you don’t have that money, how much more terrifying must it be?"

Despite what has happened, Allen insists her anger is not directed at Gray.

"He has a mental illness. The system has failed him. But until he gets the right treatment and the right help he needs, then I'm not safe," she said.

"You can throw the book at him, put him in jail, but he'll still be coming out. And the victim is never safe.

"I want some answers from the police. I'm a famous person and had the inclination to push things. If they treat me like this, how the hell are they going to treat someone else without those resources, without clout?"

Gray was convicted of burglary and harassment at Harrow crown court this month and will be sentenced next month.