THE former butler of Princess Diana spoke yesterday of his anguish after being told his wife had been kidnapped.
Paul Burrell, of High Street, Farndon, told Chester Crown Court he received a series of threatening phone calls last summer.
During one of them he was told a man had his wife and heard a woman “sobbing” in the background and calling for help.
In another call he had been told his shop, Paul Burrell Flowers, was going to be set on fire, and in another the caller asked if he could “involve” Mr Burrell’s sons.
It took just over 20 minutes for the jury to reach a unanimous verdict that Slav Mitev, 50, of Station Road, Wood Green, north London, committed an offence of harrassment and and an offence of causing fear of violence.
Judge Elgan Edwards had instructed the jury not to find the defendant guilty or not guilty because the court agreed with two medical reports that he was unfit to plea.
Gordon Hennell QC, prosecuting, said: “In June, 2011 Mr Burrell and his sister-in-law Adriann Crosgrove, who sometimes works in his shop, received a series of phone calls to the landline at the shop.
“They noticed the person making the calls was a male who sounded mature with a foreign-sounding voice.”
He added that in one of the calls the man had said: “I am going to use an incendiary device, do you know how much shattered glass there will be at your shop?”
Mr Burrell said: “In another call the caller said: ‘Can we involve Nicholas and Alexander?’ Those are the names of my children.
“I took it to be a threat towards my two boys.”
He said in another call the person had asked if Mr Burrell’s wife Maria was there.
Mr Burrell said: “I said to him: ‘You know Maria isn’t here, she’s in America’. He said: ‘No, she’s here and I have her with me’, and started to laugh.
“I could hear in the background a woman crying and saying: ‘Help me, help me please’.
“I could honestly tell you I was sick to my stomach.
“I put the phone down and called my wife immediately. I thought he was calling from the States and had managed to get into my home.
“I said to my wife: ‘Are you all right’, she said she was. ‘What on earth is the matter’?”
In another call Mr Burrell was asked: “How much money did you extort from the Royal?”
Nick Bonehill, defending, asked Mr Burrell if the phone number to his shop was listed publicly. Mr Burrell said it was.
Following the verdict Judge Edwards adjourned the case to a date to be set after March 13.
Mitev was released on conditional bail including not to contact Mr Burrel, his family or members of staff at his flower shop.