A woman moved 'hundreds of miles' away from King's Lynn because she was too frightened to live in the town, a court heard.

Joanne O'Neill, 39, told King's Lynn Crown Court that she moved north as she was 'scared and frightened' of her former senior NHS manager, Karl Perryman.

Perryman, 52, who denies one count of stalking and one count of intimidating a witness,

was head of complaints and legal services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Lynn, where Ms O'Neill was a junior colleague.

The court also heard that Ms O'Neill, who now works as a complaints manager at another hospital, felt harrassed after receiving emails from Perryman's wife, who worked as a nurse on the cancer ward in the same hospital.

But Susannah Stevens, cross-examining, asked O'Neill why she went to Perryman's daughter's school.

Ms O'Neill replied: 'I had to take my niece to school. It's the one and only time I have ever had to take her, but my sister-in-law was heavily pregant and was having pains.'

Miss Stevens also put it to Ms O'Neill, that she and her husband, Michael Brown, 'glared' at Perryman, who was on bail at the time, when they saw him at a concert held in King's Lynn Minster.

Ms O'Neill denied this and said: 'We just looked forward, and then contacted the police.'

Perryman is said to have written eight letters, which began in December 2012. They were also sent to other managers along with Ms O'Neill's then partner and her mother. They accused her of dressing 'like a hooker', and 'sleeping her way to the top'.

The letters began when Ms O'Neill began a relationship with Mr Brown, who was the hospital's deputy director of ICT.

They purported to be from an anonymous Christian woman who wanted to put a stop to her conduct.

But they were traced to Perryman who had earlier secured Ms O'Neill a job after allegedly becoming infatuated with her at a job interview, prosecutor Jude Durr told the court.

The trial continues.