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A film producer hired private investigators to track a Hollyoaks actress in a stalking campaign waged after she ended their ‘toxic’ relationship.
Kevin Proctor struck up a romance with star Nicola Holt in July 2022, but by August the following year it had faded and the actress had begun a new relationship.
Proctor, 47, then hired private investigators and told them to place a tracker on her new partner’s car, Manchester magistrates’ court heard.
Ms Holt, who has also starred in Emmerdale, told the court the ordeal left her feeling ‘paranoid’ and ‘scared’ and she bought a Ring doorbell to keep track of who is arriving at her property.
Proctor, who was involved in making Brian Epstein biopic Midas Man, denied a charge of stalking causing serious alarm and distress, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of stalking Ms Holt, in Bolton in June 2024.
Magistrates slapped the producer with a £300 fine and £120 surcharge and ordered him to pay £85 in costs.
He was also handed a restraining order which prevents him going to any address where Ms Holt is believed to be and prevents him from contacting her directly or indirectly.
Ms Holt had described the one-year relationship as ‘toxic’ and said she checked her own vehicle to see if a tracker had been attached but found nothing.
Film producer Kevin Proctor, pictured outside Manchester magistrates’ court on Thursday, hired private investigators to track a Hollyoaks actress after she ended their ‘toxic’ relationship
She also had access to her partner’s grey Audi, prosecutor Olivia Davin said, and found a device attached to that.
Ms Davin said the tracker was ‘a small black device with a sim card inside and a blue flashing light’.
In a victim statement, Ms Holt said: ‘This situation has made me completely paranoid and scared.’
‘I have had to get a Ring doorbell. Every time I get a notification I assume it’s him and it panics me.
‘I thought a man was following me in Asda and thought he had paid someone to follow me.’
She added that she checks her car ‘every day’ for a tracker and is ‘completely paranoid and scared’ that Proctor will turn up at her address and ‘assault’ her.
Aisling Byrne, defending, said Proctor was of previously ‘exemplary good character’ and he had continued to provide financial support to Ms Holt when their relationship ended.
She added that when Proctor learned Ms Holt had started a new relationship, he ‘wondered if it was a relationship that featured a financial aspect and she still needed his assistance’.
He struck up a romance with star Nicola Holt, pictured, in July 2022, but by August the following year it had faded and the actress had begun a new relationship
Proctor hired a private investigations firm, Ms Byrne said, and they had put the tracker on Ms Holt’s car on his instruction.
Ms Byrne said Proctor had been diagnosed with autism and a psychiatrist report indicated it may have impacted on his ability to ‘make sound judgment and make rational decisions and understand the consequences of his actions’.
She added: ‘It might explain why a previously law-abiding man went a bit crazy.’
Ms Byrne said Proctor had lost his livelihood, no longer worked in the film industry and had found himself in debt.
Although he commanded ‘respect’ and ‘loyalty’ from people who knew him, she said, he now worked in a freezer factory and was ‘struggling’, with his outgoings considerably exceeding his income.
Proctor’s other credits include psychological thriller Cordelia and Funny Cow.
