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Edward Vines, 52, wrote eight letters addressed to her and her mother expressing his “unrequited” love for the journalist, attempting to send the messages from HMP Nottingham over 20 months to last December. He had been jailed for three years in February 2020 after the 12th breach of a restraining order not to contact Ms Maitlis, who he had met when they were at Oxford University in 1990.

Prosecutor Ian Way in July had told Nottingham Crown Court: “This case has a long and unhappy history.

“His compulsive behaviour towards her resulted in a conviction against him before the West London Magistrates’ Court in 2002 for pursuing a course which amounted to harassment.”

And yesterday Judge Mark Watson, in sentencing Vines, told him: “You have shown breath-taking persistence and a complete disregard for the order and the proceedings that you were awaiting.

“It seems that having left university and gone your separate ways, you then ruminated over what could have been. The existence of the order is meaningless to you. The only thing stopping you from contacting her is your continued imprisonment.

“It is an obsession from which you have been unable to escape.”

Jurors were told that Vines had “systematically and with increasing frequency” breached two separate restraining orders imposed on him in 2002 and 2009 – with 12 breaches to his name and seven prosecutions.

Vines, in one letter to Ms Maitlis, 51, told her he would “continue to brood and to write letters in prison” unless she spoke to him about “her behaviour” while they were at university.

He stood trial last October – yet after proceedings were halted due to medical issues, he wrote two further letters in which he tried to blame Ms Maitlis for not admitting to being “attracted to him”.

He denied in July eight counts of attempting to breach a restraining order but was unanimously convicted of all the charges.

Ms Maitlis, whose interview with the Duke of York in 2020 led to him stepping back from official public duties, and her mother declined to give victim impact statements to the court ahead of yesterday’s sentencing.

Judge Mark Watson told Vines that despite his lengthy prison sentence in 2020 and the imposition of a restraining order, he “remained undeterred and continued in his efforts”.

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