Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘A Very Royal Scandal’ revisits the infamous interview of Prince Andrew by Emily Maitlis for Newsnight, told majorly from the perspective of the BBC journalist and her team. The three-part series presents a deep insight into the story while also focusing on Maitlis’ state of mind before and during the interview. In between this, we get to see her up-close and personal, and a major detail about her life comes to the fore. It turns out that she has been a victim of stalking for a very long time. The crime is not discussed in detail in the show, and there is a very good reason for that.
Edward Vines Has Stalked Emily Maitlis for About Three Decades
Hailing from Grosvenor Road, Oxford, Edward Vines met Emily Maitlis at Queens’ College, Cambridge, during Freshers’ Week in 1989. From here, two versions of the story have come out. The first is of Maitlis, in which it is stated that she and Vines were in a “platonic” friendship for a while. However, she decided to put a stop to any contact with him when she discovered that he wanted “something more” out of their friendship. Since then, Vines has haunted her with repeated efforts to make contact, even though she has repeatedly made it clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with him.
Vines’ version, however, is much different. He claims that it was Maitlis who expressed interest in him at first and later “scorned” him. In a statement during one of his trials, he said that they’d remained friends and shared letters over the Easter term, following which her behavior “dramatically” changed, and she didn’t want to see him anymore, putting him down in “small, nonetheless hurtful ways.” He claims that his efforts to contact her were to find out why she had shut him down. Over the years, in all the times he has been brought to court for harassing Maitlis, he has maintained that he wants to talk to her about what happened between them in college.
Edward Vines Has Been to Prison Several Times For Stalking
Following college and despite Maitlis’ clear intention of not keeping in touch with him, Vines bombarded her with letters at her home and her workplace and even tried to reach her through her family and friends. For his continued harassment between March 1999 and July 2000, he was brought to court by Maitlis. This was around the time BBC journalist Jill Dando was murdered, and Maitlis was scared for her own well-being. In September 2002, the West London Magistrates’ Court found Vines guilty of “pursuing a course of conduct which amounted to harassment.” He was sentenced to four months in prison, taking into account the two-and-a-half months he had been on remand in prison.
Mark Knopfler's guitar is so bea-u-tiful, only emily maitlis can measure up to it!
— Edward Vines (@EdwardVines) November 2, 2012
A restraining order was also passed at this time, and it “immensely relieved and pleased” Maitlis, who thought this would be the end of the stalking. However, Vines turned out to be much worse than she had expected. He first breached the restraining order in 2008, following which another order was issued in January 2009. That, too, didn’t stop the man, and he continued to find ways to reach out to her. In September 2016, a judge at Oxford Crown Court sentenced him to three years in prison after a jury unanimously found him guilty on two counts of acting in breach of a restraining order between May 10 and June 26, 2015, with an additional two counts for the breach between February 19 and February 23, 2016.
At this point, it was claimed that the defendant had paranoid schizophrenia. However, this claim was retracted in later trials. In his letters, Vines made several claims against Maitlis. In one, he asked her why she had been “derogatory” and “scornful” towards him, while in another, he claimed she had tried to trap him because she worked for intelligence services. When told to stop trying to contact Maitlis in the future, he made it clear that that was not his intention. In 2017, he appeared in court again but sacked his lawyer stating that he wanted to change his plea statement in a previous trial where he believes he was wrongfully convicted. His plea change appeal was rejected by the judge, but it did extend the hearing by a month.
Repeated Prison Sentences Did Not Stop Edward Vines
The court found Vines back for another trial in January 2018, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the restraining order against him. This time, he received a sentence of three years and nine months. Not only had he tried to reach Maitlis at her workplace at the BBC through letters and emails, but he had also tried to contact her mother, Marion Maitlis, by calling her. The court found that Vines had “persistently and systematically breached the order” over the years. The cycle continued in February 2020, when Vines was back on trial, having breached his restraining order for the twelfth time. Reportedly, he tried to send two letters to Maitlis’ mother, but they were intercepted by the prison authorities due to the court order that his letters be checked before being delivered.
Ramsey makes Emily look like a gypsy at a modern fair.
— Edward Vines (@EdwardVines) October 25, 2012
This happened in response to Maitlis’ concerns in the previous trial, where she accused the prison authorities of allowing Vines to send her letters from prison. Vines pled guilty to having breached the restraining order between May 7 to May 16, 2019, and October 6, 2019. This time, he received a total of three years in prison. Vines was brought into court again in October 2020, but the trial had to be stopped midway due to the defendant’s medical issues. Starting in May 2020, he tried to send eight letters to Maitlis and her mother, which he continued to do until December 2021. Once again, the prison staff apprehended the letters, and they did not reach the Maitlis family.
Edward Vines Claimed He Had Reasonable Excuse to Breach the Restraining Order
Emily was worried about my mental health. This is what distressed her. But she was, or so i thought, my mental health.
— Edward Vines (@EdwardVines) October 19, 2012
In July 2022, the court found Vines again at the stand with eight charges, but this time, he claimed his reasons for writing the letters were entirely different, one of which he said was the effort to “perfect the art of letter writing.” He said he had intended to be charged and brought to court so he could present his case to the jury and prove to them that he was not the guilty party and “had a right to write [the letters] as [he] was wrongly convicted.” He expressed his desire to be acquitted of his crime and to have modifications in the restraining order that would allow him to talk to Maitlis so they could resolve the issues between them. He added that he couldn’t “heal” because of the restraining order and would “continue to brood and to write letters in prison” until Maitlis talked to him.
Edward Vines Has Apologised to Emily Maitlis and is Currently in Prison
In September 2022, Edward Vines, now in his mid-50s, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted on eight counts of attempting to breach the restraining order. He was ordered to spend the first half of the sentence, till mid-2026, at HM Prison Ranby in Nottinghamshire before being released on license in 2030, meaning he would serve the rest of the sentence in the community. The judge noted that the defendant is “tortured by [his] preoccupation” with Maitlis and has an obsession from which he is “unable to escape,” rendering the restraining order meaningless. The court revealed that though the letters were not threatening or abusive, they had “an outpouring of emotions” from Vines.
When asked to say something in his defense, Vines talked about being an ideal prisoner who doesn’t cause any trouble. He said he couldn’t feel guilty because he hadn’t heard from Maitlis and her family and didn’t know their thoughts on the matter, as they were not present in court for victim statements. His lack of guilt led him to write another letter to Maitlis’ mother soon after his September conviction. In March 2023, he received a sentence of another nine-and-a-half months, but to be served concurrently with his eight-year sentence. The court’s decision not to increase the sentence stemmed from Vines offering an apology to Maitlis and her family for the first time in three decades.
Since sending the last letter, he confessed that he had experienced personal progress and revealed no intention to send any more letters. He added that he felt regret and accepted responsibility for the distress he caused Maitlis and was ready to move on. While the court saw his apology as a significant step in the right direction, it was emphasized that the restraining order banning Vines from any contact with Emily Maitlis and her family would remain in effect indefinitely.
Emily Maitlis’ Life Has Been Affected Adversely by Vines’ Stalking
Being stalked by someone for three decades takes an unimaginable toll on a person’s life, and Emily Maitlis has talked about this over the years. In a victim statement during one of the trials, she talked about feeling scared and paranoid and looking over her shoulder all the time. The fact that Vines could still get in touch with her while behind bars was a huge letdown for her. She also talked about how her life with her husband and kids had been affected because of Vines’ actions. Maitlis noted that the repeated trials and visits to court had affected her marriage as well. Her husband had been frustrated that they had been dealing with this problem for decades, even with the law involved, with no end in sight.
She said that the continual breach of the restraining order has posed Vines as a “constant threat” to her life and has prevented her from leading a “normal family life without a constant sense of suspicion and fear.” She talked about living in a state of paranoia that would impact her home life and her work life, affecting her behavior with strangers as well as her loved ones. Following this, Emily and her family decided not to appear in court for any further trials and didn’t give any victim impact statements in any further hearings.
In February 2024, Maitlis, during an interview on a podcast, revealed that, on some level, she empathized with Vines because he was ill and needed help. She termed it “obsessional illness” and said that stalking is a major mental health issue that should be regarded as such rather than being glamorized. She noted that while she had been terrorized by Vines for years, he, too, had “lost his whole life” over the obsession and hoped that he could get the help he needed to get better.
