HAD things been different, Robert Walker may have become a pillar of his local community.

A peace activist and Labour Party member, the softly-spoken Walker was being groomed for a career in local politics.

He once proudly boasted that he had been invited to become a councillor and a magistrate in the same year.

Walker grew up on the council estate of Bradford Crescent, in Durham City. As a young man living in the North-East during the 1960s and 1970s, he naturally gravitated towards the Labour Party.

He was a friend of the former Durham City Council leader Gary Birch and once served as Labour's local party branch chairman.

But behind the respectable veneer lay a murky past.

Following his conviction yesterday in Newcastle Crown Court on two counts of harassment and one of having explosive substances, it emerged that while a student activist in 1972 he had been found guilty of the theft of explosives.

And any hopes he may have had of a career in local politics were dashed when he was arrested by police investigating a petrol bomb attack which destroyed the Gilmoor Veterinarian Practice in Gilesgate, Durham, in June 1989.

Police arrested Walker because they believed he harboured a grudge against the vet.

Walker's dog had died weeks earlier on the surgery's operating table.

When charges of arson were withdrawn by the Crown Prosecution Service, Walker issued a writ against the police. The dispute was later settled out of court with no admission of liability on the part of police.

In 1998 he made a bid to buy a fish farm in Longtown, Cumbria. When he lost out to Sid and Margaret Boulter he exacted terrible retribution.

Last night, the couple who became the object of Walker's hatred spoke of their two-and-a-half years of torture at his hands, and how their dreams of settling in the rural community had been dashed.

Mrs Boulter, 40, said: "We arrived at Oakbank Fisheries thinking that this is the place where we are going to spend the rest of our days, and then he comes along and tramples all over that dream.

"I don't know why anyone would want to do this to someone.

"It has been an absolute living nightmare."

Mr Boulter, 46, said: "How would anyone feel if they were accused of the things we were in a new community with no one to support us?"

Detective Sergeant Peter Proud said: "I would hope that the people of north Cumbria, and in particular Longtown, will help the Boulters down what is going to be a rocky and difficult road."

As for Walker, he continues to protest his innocence.

Speaking shortly before the court case he told The Northern Echo: "I've been a peace activist all my life. I was a founder member of the Durham Peace Action group and protested against the Vietnam War.

"It is an insult to be thought capable of threatening someone - let alone having something as awful as having a bomb factory."

Walker offered the paper unfettered access to his side of the story.

But as evidence against him mounted, his enthusiasm to talk dried up.

And today, any veneer of respectability that the former Labour party official may have possessed has been well and truly shattered.