AN OBSESSED stalker who terrorised a leading psychiatrist, accusing him of rape and sending his fiancée death threats, was convicted yesterday of a prolonged and ruthless campaign of harassment.

Moments before Maria Marchese was led to the cells, she shouted rape allegations against Dr Jan Falkowski.

For 11 months, she had bombarded the psychiatrist and Deborah Pemberton, who was then his fiancée, with menacing text messages, e-mails and telephone calls. She repeatedly threatened to murder Ms Pemberton, forcing the couple to cancel their wedding over fears for her life.

Having destroyed their relationship, Marchese then tried to ruin the consultant’s reputation and career, telling police that he had raped her in his office at St Clement’s Hospital in Bow, East London. She obtained a sample of his DNA to give credence to her accusations after rummaging through his dustbins for a condom.

Dr Falkowski was under suspicion for rape for almost 18 months before the case against him was dropped last August.

Marchese, 45, who was born in Argentina, was convicted of harassment, making threats to kill and perverting the course of justice by making the false allegations.

Dr Falkowski’s new partner, Bethan Ancell, wept as the verdicts were read out.

Judge John Price, sitting at Southwark Crown Court, told Marchese: “You terrorised Miss Pemberton and Dr Falkowski. You got into their lives in the most extraordinary way and into their everyday existence.

“You then accused him of rape, and if it had not been for his own DNA expert he would probably have served a seven-year sentence.”

As he spoke, Marchese, from Bow, East London, said: “I did not commit these offences. He is a rapist.” She was taken to begin what the judge said would be a “lengthy” sentence. She will be sentenced in September.

Dr Falkowski, 45, said that he was “relieved that our four-year nightmare is finally over”.

Marchese’s campaign began in October 2002, and documents found in her flat revealed that she had researched Dr Falkowski’s life in detail.

She followed him to powerboat competitions for a year, calling him and Miss Pemberton, 35, from local phone boxes so that they knew their anonymous stalker was near by.

Marchese, who worked at the cheese counter in Selfridges department store in London, threatened the doctor’s two children and contacted their relatives, friends and colleagues with messages and warnings.

She tried to turn her victims against each other, telling Miss Pemberton that her lodger had given away her secrets and telling Dr Falkowski that the Pembertons were selling information about him.

Miss Pemberton received up to ten death threats a day, including that she would be “burnt down in her wedding dress” or shot by an SAS gunman if her marriage to Dr Falkowski went ahead.

Her father received a telephone call during his own father’s funeral, falsely informing him that £2,000 had been stolen from his credit card.

Marchese was arrested in Poole, Dorset, on September 6, 2003. But the prosecution case was dropped that December.

Dr Falkowski had been treating George Attard, then Marchese’s partner, since 1998, four years before the stalking began. She attended the appointments and visited him when he was an in-patient at St Clement’s.

She later claimed that it was after one of these visits, in June 2002, that the psychiatrist lured her to his first-floor office, poisoned her with a drugged drink and raped her.

She did not mention this to police until after she was arrested for harassment for a second time, on January 21, 2004.

She produced underwear that contained his semen, but also the DNA of Ms Ancell, with whom Dr Falkowski began a relationship in June 2003. Prosecutors believe that Marchese stole a condom from dustbins at his house in Epsom.

Detective Sergeant Malcolm Davies, of the Metropolitan Police, said that the doctor’s ordeal had been “one of the worst cases of stalking we have ever had to investigate”.

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