Saturday, 23 September 2006

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Sandra Bullock sues over alleged stalker

Speed star wants to know when mental patient is released from hospital

Sandra Bullock has filed a lawsuit in Tennessee to make sure she is alerted when her alleged stalker is released from a mental-health facility there.

Thomas James Weldon, currently a patient at the Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute, was hit with a restraining order in 2003, and must stay at least 200 feet away from Bullock, 42. In May, that order was extended until June 2009, but the Michigan man may receive a 90-day furlough from the facility this month, the Associated Press reports.

Bullock's lawsuit, filed Sept. 13 on behalf of her production company, Fortis Films, calls on the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities to comply with a California court order requiring she be notified upon Weldon's release. The suit does not mention Bullock by name but says Weldon has "a fixation on a certain employee of Fortis Films."

When she requested an extension of the restraining order this summer, Bullock said in court documents that Weldon had trailed her from Michigan to Texas and California, sending her e-mails and faxes and leaving voice mail messages with her and her family "indicating he wants to have a relationship with her."

Her lawyer has said Weldon admitted to suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.